20 heads · absentee owner
OFW Investor — 20 Pigs Managed by Family Back Home
You are working abroad, your kuya or pamangkin is on the ground, and you are wiring capital for 20 pigs. The math from the 10-pig backyard scenario does not transfer cleanly. Absentee management raises mortality, adds a worker salary, and introduces information lag that costs real money.
Open this scenario in the Profit Simulator
The numbers below are pre-filled. Adjust feed price, mortality, or market price to match your area.
- Capital
- ₱260,000 – ₱330,000
- Time to market
- 5 months
- ₱ per head
- ₱1,500 – ₱3,000
OFW pig farming math has a hidden tax that nobody puts in the spreadsheets you see in Facebook groups. Mortality runs higher because problems are spotted later — by the time your sister sends a photo of a sick pig, the window for sulfa or oxytetracycline has often closed. An 8% mortality assumption (instead of the textbook 5%) is honest for an absentee setup. I have heard of much worse.
Then there is the worker. Twenty pigs cannot be managed for free by an extended family member who already has a day job. ₱4,000-7,000/month for a part-time piggery caretaker is the going rate in most provinces in 2026 — and that is on top of the per-head feed and vaccine costs. Skipping this line item is how OFW piggeries quietly go cashflow-negative.
On the upside: 20 pigs is the smallest scale where it makes sense to negotiate feed direct from a B-MEG, Thunderbird, or Vitarich dealer rather than buying retail. That can knock ₱50-100 off each sack. The break-even calculator below assumes you have not yet done this; if you have, the profit-per-head range bumps to ₱2,500-4,000.
Cost breakdown
| Item | Amount |
|---|---|
| 20 weaners @ ₱3,500 | ₱70,000 |
| Commercial feeds for 20 pigs over 5 months | ₱192,000 |
| Caretaker salary (5 months × ₱5,500) | ₱27,500 |
| Vaccines, dewormer, vet visits | ₱8,000 |
| Pen depreciation ₱60,000 pen, 5-year life | ₱12,000 |
| Mortality buffer (8% = 1.6 pigs) | ₱22,000 |
| Remittance & transfer fees | ₱4,000 |
| Total batch cost | ₱335,500 |
Revenue line
18.4 pigs × 95 kg × ₱185/kg = ₱323,380
At 8% mortality the net is 18.4 pigs to market. Revenue ₱323,380 on ₱335,500 cost is a small batch loss — meaning the scenario is on the knife edge of breakeven. A ₱10/kg price swing decides the outcome. This is why most absentee operations need scale (50+ heads) to absorb their fixed costs.
What this leaves out
- ⚠ This calculator does not model the trust cost. If feed gets diverted or pigs get sold off-book by a relative, the loss can be catastrophic. Articles on paiwi and contract-grower terms cover how to structure the arrangement to prevent this.
- ⚠ If you raise the mortality assumption to 12% (one bad ASF scare, one feed-mixing mistake), the scenario goes solidly negative. OFW piggeries fail more often from mortality than from price drops.
- ⚠ The numbers do not include flight cost if you need to come home to deal with an emergency. Budget for one trip per year as a real line item.
Bisaya / Cebuano
Para sa mga mag-uuma
- Para sa OFW nga nagpadala og kapital alang sa 20 ka baboy, gikinahanglan og ₱260,000-330,000 ang full batch.
- Ang ginansya, kung ang sakto nga tao ang nagdumala ug 8% lang ang namatay, mga ₱30,000-60,000 sa usa ka batch. Pero kung 12% ang mamatay (kasagaran kung walay tarong nga caretaker), pildi ka.
- Ang pinakadako nga sayop: walay sweldo nga gisuwelduhan sa caretaker. Bayri og sakto, ₱5,000-7,000/buwan, kay kung dili — magkalisang ang trabaho ug madaut ang mga baboy.
Try your own numbers
The Profit Simulator opens pre-loaded with this scenario.