How Much Does It Cost to Keep a Pig?

The purchase price of a pig is rarely the number that decides whether keeping one is affordable. What matters is the recurring monthly cost — feed, bedding and vet care — plus the one-off setup costs that first-time keepers most often leave out of their first budget entirely. This guide leads with the costs we can ground in real retail prices, then covers purchase price and vet care using the best figures we could find (the note below says where each comes from).

What feed costs in the UK

Feed is the recurring cost we can ground in a real UK price. One UK retailer lists a 20kg bag of pig grower pellets at £11.95 including VAT — about £0.60 per kg. Combined with the typical daily intake we use in our feed cost calculator (0.5kg a day for a weaner, 1.5kg for a grower, 2.5kg for a finisher), that works out at roughly:

• Weaner (~10–30kg): about £0.30 a day, or £9 a month
• Grower (~30–60kg): about £0.90 a day, or £27 a month
• Finisher (~60–110kg): about £1.50 a day, or £45 a month

Treat these as a starting point rather than a quote: it's one retailer's listing (undated), feed type and bag size change the price per kg, and delivery to a rural address can add to it. Enter what you actually pay in the calculator. We couldn't find a reliable current UK figure for pig purchase price or routine vet costs, so we haven't invented one — ask local breeders and your nearest farm vet for their price list.

The cost of one pig vs two or three

Pigs are social animals, and welfare guidance expects them to be kept in company rather than alone — so “what does a pig cost” is rarely the real question. Feed, bedding and vet allowance scale roughly linearly with headcount (double the pigs, roughly double those costs), but pen size doesn't always: our pen size calculator applies a minimum-pen floor at very small group sizes, so a second pig can sometimes share space that a single pig would already need on its own. Use the cost of keeping calculator with your actual headcount — one, two or three — rather than multiplying a single-pig figure by hand.

Setup costs are the ones people most often underestimate

Housing and fencing are a genuine one-off cost, and they vary too much by build method and location for any single site to quote a responsible number — a reclaimed-materials shelter and a proper insulated building can differ by thousands of dollars for the same floor area. Work out the space you actually need first with our UK or US pig pen size calculator or the combined land needed calculator (which adds outdoor paddock space on top of pen size), then price your own build from there rather than budgeting off someone else's number.

Purchase price and vet care: US figures

Pet and mini pig prices commonly range from $300 to $3,500, depending on breed, breeder reputation and colouring — and that's before shipping, a health certificate or microchipping, which can add a few hundred dollars on top. Be wary of “teacup” or “micro” marketing specifically (more on why): there's no officially recognised miniature pig breed, and pigs sold under these labels commonly reach 80–150lb (36–68kg) or more once fully grown — which matters here because a bigger adult pig eats more, needs more space, and costs more to keep, regardless of how small it was marketed as a piglet.

Routine veterinary care — checkups, vaccinations, and hoof and tusk trimming — typically adds $200–500 a year (our cost of keeping calculator starts from $350/year, the midpoint, and shows it as roughly £263 in UK mode using an approximate exchange rate). Spay or neuter surgery is a further one-off $200–500, strongly recommended rather than optional. Use our cost of keeping calculator to combine feed, a vet allowance and your own other costs into a weekly, monthly and yearly estimate for your own headcount, rather than relying on a generic figure.

Use this as a planning floor, not a quote

Every figure here will move with your country, region and the individual pig — an older pig or one with an ongoing health issue can cost meaningfully more than these reference points suggest. The value of a rough budget isn't precision, it's making sure nothing on this list is a surprise six months in.

Purchase price and vet-cost figures on this page: Vety.com's pig cost guide (US). UK feed price: Torne Valley retailer listing, 20kg pig grower pellets, £11.95 inc. VAT. Sources checked: September 2026.

Common questions

Is the purchase price the biggest cost of keeping a pig?

No — it's usually the smallest number over the pig's lifetime. Feed, vet care and bedding recur every month for years; a one-off purchase price of even a few hundred dollars is easily overtaken within the first year or two.

Do “teacup” or “micro” pigs stay cheaper to keep long-term?

Not reliably. There's no officially recognised miniature breed, and pigs marketed as teacup or micro commonly reach 80–150lb (36–68kg) or more at maturity — closer to the housing, feed and space costs of a standard small pig than the marketing implies.

What do first-time pig keepers most often forget to budget for?

Housing and fencing setup, spay/neuter surgery, and routine hoof and tusk trimming are the three that catch people out most — none are optional, and none show up in a simple “feed cost per week” estimate.