[Foobar]

I'm thinking about growing some forage for my pigs for the summer, just to supplement their diet.  Can anyone suggest any good things to grow? (sowing now)   Quick growing would be good, or something that you can pick and it re-grows.  The only problem is the location I have available to plant in is semi shade.


Any ideas welcomed .

[Berkshire Boy]

I plant my pens with stuble turnip, grows in about 12 weeks depending on the weather and the pigs love it. They usually eat the leaves first and then go round digging up the turnips.

[benkt]

I also grow a biggish patch of fodder beat for ours, not to let them forage over, but dug up for autumn-spring feeding. Biggest problem is getting a suitable amount of seed as its sold by the acre. A couple of years ago we split a bag on TAS which was great. Might try to organise that this year if I get organised at all!

[goosepimple]

I read a John Seymour book recently, 'Fat of the Land' and he used to grow a big field of artichokes and let his pigs go and demolish the lot - don't think he fed them anything else if I recall correctly.

[hughesy]

If you want to harvest and store for later use fodder beet, turnips or swede maybe. For letting the pigs eat it in situ stubble turnip, kale, forage rape or maybe cabbage of some sort.

[graham-j]

Hi,probably a stupid question but how do you store fodder beet.Sounds like a good thing to grow,I have plenty of animals that would eat it.

Graham.

[MAK]

Beetroot ! It keeps well in the ground and can grow quite large. I cook mine up (sometimes with spuds) and they love the red water and beet. Looks like a bit of a blood bath after they have eaten it though.
To be honest I overplant whatever and wherever I can so I can give them a variety of food with their nuts. I even had them eating our excess melons last year.

[Susannah]

We put Tamworths on the artichoke crop after harvesting what we could last year. They didn't like it at all but the Chinese geese ate the lot!
Is fodder beet another name for mangold/mangle worsel?

[hughesy]

This year I'm going to plant the areas that have been dug over by the pigs after they've moved on to fresh ground. I'm planning on growing stubble turnips, kale and probably some fodder beet and swede. The plan is to plant about half an acre at a time and hopefully be able to put aside a decent store of feed to eke out the bought in pig feed. The plan for storage is to put down some pallets, a layer of clean straw, then stack the swedes or beet and cover with a tarpaulin. Obviously a nice dry barn would be ideal but if I had a nice dry barn so many things would be ideal I couldn't list them all.

[Foobar]

Fab, thanks for all the replies.


Where do you guys go to buy your seed for these things,  stubble turnip, kale, forage rape, fodder beet etc. ?

[hughesy]

Try here http://tuckers-seeds.com/index.php?route=product/category&path=1_91 or https://www.cotswoldseeds.com/seedmix/root-crops. They both do seeds in smallish amounts.

[Foobar]

Brill, cheers.

[graham-j]

When do you need to sow the seed for mangold/mangle worsel.

Graham.

[plt102]

I planted borage in the pen when the pigs went off. Its a hungry herb that grows like a weed. The next batch of weaners loved it

[Fowlman]

Hemp is worth looking into. A good herbacious plant that livestock apparently love.