The daily care, health, and handling of pigs — feeding, monitoring, breeding support, and herd management — is your hands-on work on a farm or research operation. Keeping a herd healthy, day in and day out.
On farms or in research barns, often early and in all conditions, you feed, monitor health, assist breeding and farrowing, and handle animals — physical, routine-driven work tied to the herd's needs, not the clock. Catching a sick or off animal early is the craft, and the herd depends on your consistency every single day.
The harder part is the physical, every-day-of-the-year nature of it — animals need care on holidays and weekends. The work can be smelly, strenuous, and emotionally mixed, biosecurity protocols are strict, and pay tends to be modest. Conditions vary from small farms to large operations.
It tends to fit someone hardworking, reliable, and genuinely comfortable with animals. If you want a desk, clean conditions, or regular hours, this isn't built for that. But if hands-on animal care and the rhythm of a farm appeal, the work tends to be steady and grounding.
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Roles like this one sit within a broader occupational category. The numbers below reflect that full landscape — helpful for context, but your specific experience will depend on level, specialty, and where you work.
Roles with similar work and overlapping career paths
View all Healthcare roles →The daily care, health, and handling of pigs — feeding, monitoring, breeding support, and herd management — is your hands-on work on a farm or research operation. Keeping a herd healthy, day in and day out.
Median pay for a Swine Technician (Swine Tech) is about $66K nationally, with the field ranging roughly from $32K to $142K depending on experience, employer, and metro (BLS).
Core skills for this role include Critical Thinking, Active Learning, Reading Comprehension, Judgment and Decision Making, and Complex Problem Solving.
Most people in this role hold a bachelor's degree.
Employment in this field is projected to grow about 7.8% through 2034, with roughly 145,690 people working in it today (BLS).
Closely related roles include Research Scientist, Senior Research Scientist, and Veterinary Nurse (Vet Nurse).
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