[Ianto]

Hi, I've just got my first weaners, 5 Berkshires. They're on pasture but it's mostly grass and not really growing yet so I don't think they can be doing much grazing. The field is just under an acre and I've split it into 4 compartments for rotation, so they are currently on the first 1/4 acre. I've started feeding them weaner pellets but am very keen to get feed costs as low as I can also a massive part of the attraction of pigs for me is using food waste to feed them. I can get an unlimited supply of spent grains from a local brewery and have halved  the pellet rations and replaced with double the weight of spent grains. PIgs never finish the grains though and just sort through till they get all the pellets. Presumably I can't be underfeeding or they would be finishing all the grains regardless of how little nutrition is in them? I also have the opportunity to get whey from the local dairy. Do you think I could cut out the pellets completely and feed whey and spent grain plus veg scraps? How much whey plus spent grain should I feed them? Any advice welcome. Cheers

[TonyG]

Pigs won't live on grass and there are strict rules about what you can feed them. They also require certain vitamins and minerals which varies greatly in different feedstuffs, getting the right balance is very difficult so I would suggest that you don't even consider cutting out pellets completely unless you can be sure that what you are feeding them meets their needs (and is legal).

I have a document which gives nutritional information on various feedstuffs for pigs and how much can be given safely, I can email it to you if you pm me your email address.

[Marches Farmer]

I agree.  The diet you describe would, for instance, probably be deficient in copper.  The feed conversion rate is more efficient the younger the pig is, so working out whether it would be more efficient to feed a pig on pellets for X weeks as opposed to cheaper feed for X weeks plus 3 or 4, is a delicate piece of mathematics.

[Pigsmightfry]

The pigs will soon dig up all the grass due to their natural rooting instinct.

Pigs need a balanced diet that includes the right amounts of protein and vitamins that help them grow into a type of carcass that is useful, this diet comes ready mixed in feed pellets. Pigs will eat almost anything, however, different things will affect the final carcass in different ways, as an example, if you feed them too much barley they can put on a lot of fat. Therefore, cutting out the pellets may work against you, however, you could reduce them if you supplement the diet with other feed types. I suggest you do some research as there is plenty of information available online.

Trying to raise your pigs on the cheap will lead to a poor end product, there is no substitute for following a know process that has taken years to evolve, you can tweet the process, but if you deviate too much all your efforts will have been wasted.

[Eve]

am very keen to get feed costs as low as I can

 May I ask why?

[3county farm boy]

In the original post it says feeding weaner pellets, where we are they're the most expensive, I'd have them on growers now that's cheaper too,
If you have 5 why don't you buy a bulk load and save again, as long as you can store it, the last time I checked it was £245 a ton in bags here

[farmershort]

Why don't you start with TonyG's document, and go from there. I'm a big fan of not relying on pellets for animals, full of imported soya and nonesense.

Do check the rules about feeding them though. I suspect you will have to become a registered waste handler to be able to use the spent grains and waste milk.

TonyG,  could I get a copy of that too please? To add to the collection.

[Hairybathplug]

Pigs are feed intensive so to keep the costs down its best to get them from weaners to pork in the shortest time.  Sow/weaner nuts give everything a pig needs so that is the fastest way.  You can reduce nuts by a percentage depending on their forage.

[greenbeast]

Do check the rules about feeding them though. I suspect you will have to become a registered waste handler to be able to use the spent grains and waste milk.

potentially the dairy has to be registered to supply the whey as animal feed as well i believe

[farmershort]

Do check the rules about feeding them though. I suspect you will have to become a registered waste handler to be able to use the spent grains and waste milk.

potentially the dairy has to be registered to supply the whey as animal feed as well i believe

they really do like to make it difficult to be sustainable don't they!

[sabrina]

Trying to keep animals on the cheap does not work. You risk their health and the end product is just now what it should be.  I use sow and weaners when rearing Kune-Kune pigs and they have veg and grass. The end product is so worth it. I do keep a very close eye on how they are growing. Over the years of doing this I know now what works .

[harmony]

I've started feeding them weaner pellets but am very keen to get feed costs as low as I can also a massive part of the attraction of pigs for me is using food waste to feed them. I can get an unlimited supply of spent grains from a local brewery and have halved  the pellet rations and replaced with double the weight of spent grains. PIgs never finish the grains though and just sort through till they get all the pellets. Presumably I can't be underfeeding or they would be finishing all the grains regardless of how little nutrition is in them? I also have the opportunity to get whey from the local dairy. Do you think I could cut out the pellets completely and feed whey and spent grain plus veg scraps? How much whey plus spent grain should I feed them? Any advice welcome. Cheers

Pigs are omnivores and as we now don't have the option of feeding them meat they need decent feed that is well balanced. There is no problem supplementing diet or replacing some of the ration with alternatives as long as they still have a balanced diet with the vitamins, minerals and other things they need such as lysine. Young pigs convert food at the optimum rate so Marches Farmer is quite right in his comments above.


You have already noticed their preference for the manufactured food over your brewers grain. Whey is smelly, makes for smelly pigs and also very pale meat.


Berkshires would not be taken to the higher weights of some other breeds and finish typically around 65 kgs.


I'm sorry to be blunt but why get pigs then look at doing it on the cheap? What do you intend to do with your finished pigs. Surely costs should be reflected in your end product price?

[Ianto]

Thanks for all your responses. These pigs are not to be sold, they are to be eaten by me and my neighbours, who are paying cost price. I am not a farmer, I am a man with a field. I have every intention of raising the best pork I possibly can, that is the entire purpose of the exercise.

People seem to respond very strongly to the word "cheap", I word which I emphasise I did not use. I want to keep my feed costs to a minimum for three reasons: 1) When I did my figuring I come out spending more on feed than it would cost me to buy a finished pig from the local rare breed keeper. I am more than happy to do all the work involved in keeping them simply for the pleasure of being a pig owner but we all have limited means and it does not make any sense to pay more than the going rate on top of all the work. 2) Pigs have been kept for thousands of years on whatever waste food was available. I am aware of the legal restrictions now in place on this practice but surely in our developed world of vast food waste it should be possible to tap this wasted resource and legally continue this practice. 3) We currently have no local feed mill so I either have to buy feed by the bag from the local supplier which is hugely expensive or by the ton for delivery which presents storage problems and significant delivery costs. In both cases there is no information on origin and I assume it is coming from the US or S.America and will contain GM along with who knows what else. 

The dairy is registered to supply whey as feed, so no legal problems there.  I haven't seen any legal restrictions on using spent grain, and the brewery I get it from send all the rest for cattle feed. For clarity I am in Scotland and I think restrictions are slightly different here.

I have acquired a broken chest freezer which should be vermin and weather proof which I reckon should hold half a ton of feed so once I get another I should be able to buy feed in bulk. I fully intend to continue feeding pellets, I'm really looking for advice on appropriate substitutions amounts of the various other foodstuffs I get hold of. All the advice I have found online does not mention amounts. It looks like TonyG's doc will help me with that, thanks.. I mentioned cutting out feed completely only as a query, this is not my plan.

On another note, harmony says Berkshires will finish at about 65kgs and go no further, which ties with what my books say, but the breeder I got them from says she regularly takes them higher. Be great to take a couple to baconer weight, anyone have any experience of this (successful or failed!)?

[farmershort]

Trying to keep animals on the cheap does not work. You risk their health and the end product is just now what it should be.  I use sow and weaners when rearing Kune-Kune pigs and they have veg and grass. The end product is so worth it. I do keep a very close eye on how they are growing. Over the years of doing this I know now what works .

What evidence do you have that a sustainable home-mixed food is bad for health and the end product?

[Marches Farmer]

Feeding of any class of livestock is a delicate balance between husbandry, breed, land, feed value and weather.  It is an art as well as a science and one that generally takes many years of experience to get anywhere near perfect.  To begin by experimenting may not be the best way to ensure you get the end product you want to achieve.