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Author Topic: Got some free pig food  (Read 6432 times)

Roxy

  • Joined May 2009
  • Peak District
    • festivalcarriages.co.uk
Got some free pig food
« on: September 27, 2011, 10:53:48 pm »
There is a big commercial pig farm just up the lane.  One of the big feed wagons could not fit under the railway bridge, this morning.  Farm owner has his trucks maintained at the garage where my hubby works, so took the wagon there, and unloaded it on to his own vehicle.  Hubby said there were 24 bags of feed on the truck - not bags like we buy!!  They were like builders sacks, and cost £175 each.  Apparantly those 24 bags would last the pigs one week ....eeek - thank goodness I do not have to pay that feed bill every week.

Anyway, while moving the bags there was some spillage .......such a shame to waste top qualty feed, so its ended up in my feed shed, and will keep my two girls a little longer than a week.  Pig farmer said to feed it dry, but I dampened it slightly, like I would our pig meal.  This smell very nice, almost like malted milk biscuits, I think ......anyway, our pigs enjoyed their new feed.

Had to smile at myself, being so pleased when my hubby showed me what he had brought - well, at least he had the sense to bring it home, and not sweep it up and put it in the bin.  One day a big truck carryng bakery products overturned, and all the bread out of the truck had to be removed.........us and the animals had a feast for about a week then!!  We have also had some giant cheeses that were the victim of a RTA.

Sylvia

  • Joined Aug 2009
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #1 on: September 28, 2011, 08:35:38 am »
Well done, Roxy :thumbsup: I am fattening two porkers on free, slightly out of date porrige oats and muesli (we had about a thousand boxes ;D) and free waste fruit and veg. I think I may have to buy a few baqs of commercial feed to finish them but I'm not complaining about that!

Barrett

  • Joined Jun 2011
  • North Somerset
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #2 on: September 28, 2011, 12:47:06 pm »
Every little helps! Roxy can you tell me where you live I may have come up and bring my spade  ;D, my piggies get fed all sorts my local pub saves all the veg peelings and bread and stuff for me, I think that the price of pig pellets is so expensive that you do your best to feed them with whatever you can.

HappyHippy

  • Guest
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #3 on: September 28, 2011, 12:59:33 pm »
Every little helps! Roxy can you tell me where you live I may have come up and bring my spade  ;D, my piggies get fed all sorts my local pub saves all the veg peelings and bread and stuff for me, I think that the price of pig pellets is so expensive that you do your best to feed them with whatever you can.
Aaaaaarrrgghhhh ! STOP  :o If you're in the UK, please don't feed waste food from a kitchen.

I know pig food is expensive, but there are other places to get safe and legal alternative foodsources for them. You could check out fruit & veg wholesalers, breweries (mash and fruit pulp) local orchards & allotments for windfall and 'over' crops. There are loads of alternatives to feeding food which isn't only illegal, but risks another FMD outbreak. If the pub store and peel the veg outside the kitchen, this avoids the risks and it would be fine to feed it in this case, but I really wouldn't do it otherwise.
I know, I know - I'm just a busy body sticking my nose in  ::) .........but I like to play it safe where disease (and the Law) comes into it  ;)
Karen  :wave:

Roxy

  • Joined May 2009
  • Peak District
    • festivalcarriages.co.uk
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #4 on: September 28, 2011, 01:17:58 pm »
Happyhippy is right .....it is illegal to to feed this to your pigs.  It does seem a shame when it could be used to feed livestock, but rightly or wrongly, we now have these rules.  I do know people are still carrying on feeding kitchen waste - either knowingly and keeping it quiet, or are ignorant of the laws.

A lady in the village has her pigs (for her own consumption) alongside a busy tourist walkway.  Most days the pigs are tucking in to veg and fruit thrown over by passers by.  Owner is well aware of the rules, but like she said, just how do you stop the villagers?  I suppose in their eyes, these are makng use of food otherwise going in the bin.

In my case (the feed that tipped from the large feed bags) whether it was wrong or not, there was no way I would refuse what equates to three normal bags of pig feed.  How many pig owners would have said, in the same circumstances "No thank you, its against the law!" :)

Sylvia

  • Joined Aug 2009
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #5 on: September 28, 2011, 02:07:35 pm »
MY cereals came straight from the wholesaler (who only deals in cereals) and is stored in a garage. The veg. waste comes straight from the shop to waiting, greedy mouths. I smelt the funeral pyres during the last Foot and Mouth outbreak and wouldn't want that to happen again. Though I blame imported meat for that!!!!! >:( >:(

HappyHippy

  • Guest
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #6 on: September 28, 2011, 07:38:58 pm »
Roxy, I would have done the same as you  ;) After all - it wasn't tipped onto a kitchen floor was it  :D ;D
Just keep a check on it though, if any of it got wet and you've got it in plastic bags it might go mouldy.
Karen x

HappyHippy

  • Guest
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #7 on: September 28, 2011, 07:42:24 pm »
MY cereals came straight from the wholesaler (who only deals in cereals) and is stored in a garage. The veg. waste comes straight from the shop to waiting, greedy mouths. I smelt the funeral pyres during the last Foot and Mouth outbreak and wouldn't want that to happen again. Though I blame imported meat for that!!!!! >:( >:(
That's the thing though Sylvia, a huge percentage of meat in UK kitchens is imported..........from places where FMD and various other diseases are common - hence why it's even more important to avoid any kind of cross contamination.
Karen x

ellisr

  • Joined Sep 2009
  • Wales
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #8 on: September 29, 2011, 08:43:53 am »
The last foot and mouth outbreak did come from pigs and originated just outside of Newcastle upon Tyne so foreign meat was not to blame last time

SallyintNorth

  • Joined Feb 2011
  • Cornwall
  • Rarely short of an opinion but I mean well
    • Trelay Cohousing Community
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #9 on: September 29, 2011, 09:07:25 am »
The last foot and mouth outbreak did come from pigs and originated just outside of Newcastle upon Tyne so foreign meat was not to blame last time
Aye, it was found in pigs at a farm in Heddon-on-the-Wall.  But, as I understand it, we are told that the source was believed to be meat of foreign origin in slops from restaurant / school kitchens. 
Don't listen to the money men - they know the price of everything and the value of nothing

Live in a cohousing community with small farm for our own use.  Dairy cows (rearing their own calves for beef), pigs, sheep for meat and fleece, ducks and hens for eggs, veg and fruit growing

ellisr

  • Joined Sep 2009
  • Wales
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #10 on: September 29, 2011, 09:09:48 am »
goodness knows what them pigs were fed as the welfare report was horrid for the lot, I knew a neighbour that told me it wasn't the best

Roxy

  • Joined May 2009
  • Peak District
    • festivalcarriages.co.uk
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #11 on: September 29, 2011, 10:53:41 am »
I questioned hubby about the feed - and inspected it closely.  Apparantly the bag slipped as they fork lifted it from the truck to a smaller one, and the feed fell into a pile.  He said the floor was clean in the barn, and he shovelled the feed into clean see through bags, which were new, so I was happy it was safe to use :)

Having had a close encounter with the last  foot and mouth outbreak, I full endorse the precautions we all have to take regarding feeding livestock.  The farm across the lane from where we are living in our caravan at present was involved.  Sheep and cattle (a highly prized herd) were slaughtered and burnt on the farm.  I was terrified as we are just a few miles over the hill and worried about my livestock.  Had the farm been any closer we would have been in the zone for slaughter. 

The memory of big diggers opening massive trenches in the field, and carrying the dead cattle and sheep to them will live with me forever.  As will the sight, and smell of the fire, which hung in the air for days afterwards ......I often think, with a wry smle, would the caravanners be quite so happy with their idyllic surroundings if they knew what they are parked on :o.

Blonde

  • Joined Mar 2011
Re: Got some free pig food
« Reply #12 on: October 01, 2011, 10:27:03 am »
There is a big commercial pig farm just up the lane.  One of the big feed wagons could not fit under the railway bridge, this morning.  Farm owner has his trucks maintained at the garage where my hubby works, so took the wagon there, and unloaded it on to his own vehicle.  Hubby said there were 24 bags of feed on the truck - not bags like we buy!!  They were like builders sacks, and cost £175 each.  Apparantly those 24 bags would last the pigs one week ....eeek - thank goodness I do not have to pay that feed bill every week.

Anyway, while moving the bags there was some spillage .......such a shame to waste top qualty feed, so its ended up in my feed shed, and will keep my two girls a little longer than a week.  Pig farmer said to feed it dry, but I dampened it slightly, like I would our pig meal.  This smell very nice, almost like malted milk biscuits, I think ......anyway, our pigs enjoyed their new feed.

Had to smile at myself, being so pleased when my hubby showed me what he had brought - well, at least he had the sense to bring it home, and not sweep it up and put it in the bin.  One day a big truck carryng bakery products overturned, and all the bread out of the truck had to be removed.........us and the animals had a feast for about a week then!!  We have also had some giant cheeses that were the victim of a RTA.
It is certainly one way to make a dollar (quid)    We get that from time to time and I enjoy the idea, bread used to be one of them but someone came in and now takes the lot and has pushed all the small people out.  they take 16 ton a day every day to feed cows that they buy cheap at the local markets, then they sell thir animals for top dollar...... not fair on the small person really! :pig:.

 

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