The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: patchy1990 on February 24, 2011, 07:23:29 pm
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Just out of interest, what do you feed your pigs?
Mine at the moment are on nuts, and occasionally any fruit and veg left over from the local shops. I also scatter feed some apples that dropped from the tree last year, general things like that.
The majority of their food is the sow nuts though, however am aware this will become very expensive.
How much of each feed do you give your pigs?
Thankyou :D
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Same as you, pellets and whatever fruit and veg we can get our hands on, inc hundreds of free bananas and crates full of cucumbers (crunchy water, though, not very filling but clenches their thirst in summer ;)) from wholesalers nearby, cheap apples and leftover melons from the market, windfall apples etc. A load of burger buns that were over-ordered for a fair and never made if out of their box was happily gobbled up, too.
Plenty of allotments nearby and quite a few people keen to come and feed the pigs their windfall fruit because of the novelty factor of feeding pigs (they do ask us first). We get buckets full of old overgrown / gone to seed allotment produce left in our porch. The muddy darlings went through a load of plums once like there was no tomorrow! :D
:wave:
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The same as above although Hilary has started a new diet called serve yourself eggs. (Its ok its legal here for pigs to have eggs although I doubt the quantity Hilary swallowed will be good for her digestion). We are lucky that we have a veg. factory local to us.
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You can feed them sugar beet to help fill them up, and its cheaper than nuts... don't feed purely sugar beet though as they wont get everything they need. Someone I know just feeds their pigs barley and soaked sugar beet, and any fruit/ veg from the garden, and the pigs get the rest from the ground (personally i'd do a soil sample if expecting to get everything (extra protein, minerals, vitamins other amino acids) from the ground, but thats just me) pigs seem ok.
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I prefer feeding them mash/meal - its cheaper in the long run than pencils etc.
Mine get a scoop or several of mixed flakes a day, as well as their mash & shredded beet every couple of days.
they get hay & eat all the straw thats meant to be bedding! and grass, veggies etc.
and are eating their way through the shed floor too.... ::D
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As long as the piglets begin with a high protein sourced feed and then finishers end up with a low protein feed and they all put on the desired weight and back fat levels just about any combinations of feed can be given. There are as many pig feeds as there are producers and we all do things differently but end up with the one result. A pig that we can eat!
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The pigs i have are for breeding not eating! But thankyou for your input :)
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what do you do with the ones that have incorect underlines and dont meet breed standards???
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And what if you can't sell all the offspring?
We have been left with 7 to fatten ourselves. All males - we certainly can't keep seven boars!!!!
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woaah! Chill. The offspring are going to be used for pork, yes i have people to buy the pork. The two i have at the moment are what i will breed for.
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Agree with blonde
The pigs I was on about that got sugar beet were breeding pigs, the fatteners also eat the same. You can use grass, hay and sometimes silage, though all those depends on whether your pigs like it or not. Sugar beet can be reasonably cheap depending where you are in the country. You can always try making your own feed up but I would advise speaking to a nutrional expert first (Harbro are good people to chat to and the guy I emailed to a lot knew from the onset I wouldnt be ordering) and see if this is any cheaper. field peas and beans are a good protein alternative to soya (and so is fishmeal but that is so very expensive and you run the risk of fish taint, but you would only need a 5% inclusion to the meal compared to 60% of soya bean meal).
What breed are you pigs?
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Thankyou, will look in to that! Just trying to think of some money saving methods so thats really useful!
I have gloucester old spots!
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join the happy club that is feeding pigs all feeding is going up and up with no sign of getting cheaper sugar beet pulp will also increase due to the massive losses with the weather the best thing to cut costs is if you get feeding for free fruit and veg is your best option but it still costs even if you collect it
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Quite agree if you can get your hands on some free fruit and veg that would help, but you couldnt purely feed that, you'd have to supplement with something. Ask your local greengrocers or supermarker/corner shop, you may find though that they already have anoutlet but worth asking.
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The pigs I have are for breeding not eating! But thankyou for your input :)
Not all pigs meet the standards for breeding, so some where down the line you have to let some pigs go for consumption. I line breed and the pigs that dont fit in are sent for slaughter as they dont meet the criteria, but for those who do I feed a proper diet so that I get maxium growth in readiness for the fnext generations production. I also run a commercial operation and know that if you dont feed your pigs on the proper diet they dont grow like they should. If you are breeding then you should be able to sell your progeny to others who want new blood. Those that dont make it should be sold for consumption. This brings in funds to feed the breeding program that you run. If feed has gone up then the price of your pigs has also gone up. The figures are bigger and so the profit margin is still much the same. There are plenty of good feeds out there and you just need to choose something that will get your pigs to the standard for your breeding program.
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Blonde - not sure what you are getting at? I have previously said that they pigs i have now, will be kept for pets and breeding. Their piglets are kept for meat, so no issue with feeding there. This was just a general question on what people feed their pigs! So there is no issue of standard of breeding etc.
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Patchy,
From my point of view the pigs which you will be breeding from should have the absolute best feeding there is, in order to grow effectively with the right balance of protiens, vitamins and minerals. This will ensure their breeding is successfull. By that I mean they'll not be too fat to concieve and their bodies will be perfectly balanced in order for the piglets to grow well inside the mother and once they're born.
I know one of the feed manufacturers was talking about introducing a food especially for breeding gilts, but I'm not sure if it is available yet.
HTH
Karen x
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Mine have all the normal sow nuts etc. We also have a bakery that gives us bread and pastries twice a week and a friend with a veg shop who gives us anything just about to turn.
My girls LOVE haylage (I found this out after the bashed through their fence and opened 4 of my bales costing my about £130 in lost haylage!) I also chuck any docks that I've dug up in for them - they're really popular!