Members' Blog

To anyone that loves livestock, and wants to gain a new unforgettable experience, this is the competition for you!

My name is Janet, and last year I got the opportunity to take part in this competition.  It was a completely new experience for me, and I loved every second of it.

You might be unsure if you want to give this competition a go, but if you are the person that wants to gain more experience and take on a new challenge in the agriculture and business world, and possibly being able to open new doors in the future, then start writing your applications!

Over the course of several months there were many activities that we took part in. Our first adventure was to visit the pigs at Home Farm, Haverfordwest. Where they taught me all the necessary information I needed to know beforehand. Then came the day that I got to pick my pigs up, which was an exiting day for me. From loading them into the trailer to coming home with me, the adventure was about to begin.

During the next few weeks I woke up every morning before school, and got the pleasure of seeing them all snuggled up together.  Same as before going to bed myself!

I weighed the pigs every week to make sure that I was feeding them correctly, and that they were gaining weight weekly.  I also had written a monthly report on the pigs, by noting  what I was feeding them, how much, how many kg they gained and so on. I feel like this was a good way to help me keep on track to make sure that the pigs were as healthy as possible.

As competitors we had a photo circle so that we could share our photos during our journey. It was interesting to see how everyone had a different system of keeping their pigs.

The next step of the competition was the Winter Fair! I along side my competitors got the amazing experience of having a training day, on how to show my pigs in the big show.

I spent the weeks before Winter fair walking them around the shed by using my stick and board. I must be honest, at first it didn’t go very good, and they were squealing and running all over the place!  But, after spending every night after school practicing, and practicing we got a hang of it. 

The night before the show I made sure my white coat was ready for the day ahead of me. Firstly I washed my pigs, I have to say I was lucky to have warn my waterproofs, or I would’ve been soaked!  After washing came the time to load them into the trailer, it took us an hour, but we got there in the end!

Now as a young farmer that had never walked a pig in the ring before I had no idea what to expect. Luckily, no one else did either, and that’s the best thing about a young farmers competition, it’s about having a go and having fun while doing it. And I can safely say that all of us did. We all had a prize but I think the experience that we shared was more important and it gave me more pride knowing that I had achieved getting the pigs to the show ground!

After all this we got the experience to talk to some very successful business people. They talked us through how to price product, marketing, branding and how to use any contacts that we had. These talks helped us to understand what it took to be good businesspeople and how to make our enterprise succeed in the future.

We also got the experience of having a butcher’s course, were we visited the butchers in Cardigan and got taught on how to cut the different cuts of meat from the pigs!

Following this experience, I think it’s amazing to see that some of my competitors have decided to carry on keeping pigs, and I hope to do the same in the years to come!

I think it’s amazing that during a Young Famers competition it doesn’t matter how old  you are, but your passion and the effort you put in shines through. This is an amazing opportunity for you to make new friends, while gaining the experience to be able to put on you CV. Why miss out?

I hope that this has encouraged you to take a risk, and take part in this unforgettable experience. Write that application, to make sure you don’t regret not giving it a go in the future.

Applications for the 2025 Prime Pork competition close on Monday 23rd June. To write an application, click here > Prime Pork 2025