The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Browntea on August 31, 2011, 06:41:49 pm
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We have 2 guilts around 1 yr old and lots of apples... How much can I feed them? Thanks in advance
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This will be good for me to keep an eye on :) we're due to go to a local place that has lots and lots of apple trees and the owner says i can take them for the pigs :pig: what i was going to do was spread them around the field so they're kept occupied for a while.
Correct me if i'm wrong but are apples meant to flavour the meat? Just remember hearing it somewhere along the line :)
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Not sure about them flavouring the pork WL - not with apple flavour anyway. But anything you feed adds to the general depth of flavour of the pork ;)
If you're replacing some of their hard feeding with apples 4lbs of apples will be equivalent to 1lb of hard feed, but I wouldn't give more than 50% of their meal as fruit, so for 6lbs of hard feed over 2 meals you could make it 1.5lbs of hard feed and 6lbs of apples at each feed. But work them up to that amount gradually, suddenly giving them all those apples in one go won't do their bellies much good.
HTH
Karen
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Correct me if i'm wrong but are apples meant to flavour the meat? Just remember hearing it somewhere along the line :)
Gaby & Meg had LOADS of apples last winter - and I swear you could taste the apple in Gaby's meat. I never needed to make apple sauce to go with Gaby meat, and I do like it with other pork (including free range trad breed) that I've had.
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the meat takes the flavour of what they eat acorns for the hams in Italy and if you have a source of cauliflower feed it to your pigs and try it for yourself apples will flavour it just nice :farmer:
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I feed my pigs boxes full of waste fruit, I reckon we'll have to put custard on them instead of gravy ;D
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I feed my pigs boxes full of waste fruit, I reckon we'll have to put custard on them instead of gravy ;D
;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
Ours are the same, mainly melon (which they LOVE) and a mix of other stuff - maybe that's why I don't get a particular flavour coming through as dominant ??? It'll all change once I get my orchard planted though ;) In about another centuary.....
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Thanks for the info Karen :)
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This will be good for me to keep an eye on :) we're due to go to a local place that has lots and lots of apple trees and the owner says i can take them for the pigs :pig: what i was going to do was spread them around the field so they're kept occupied for a while.
Correct me if i'm wrong but are apples meant to flavour the meat? Just remember hearing it somewhere along the line :)
Although a pig fed enough apples should take on an appley flavour (after all, its why our garden eggs are so much better, not that slugs and woodlouse are tastey), the reason is rather more seasonal. Historicaly, pigs were the last animals to be slaughtered before winter, around the time the last fruit crop could be harvested, which was coincidently apples.
Fresh Pork, Fresh Apples, pork in apple sauce.
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I have heard, anecdotally, of a crofter round here who fed his pigs fish. The meat had a very distinctive fishy taste.
I've also heard how another fed his pigs lots of apples for the last couple of weeks prior to slaughter and they produced very tasty meat.
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As long as they're not scouring (having the runs/diarrhoea), give them as much as they will eat. In the wild, they would root about for windfalls all day long. Watch what comes out of the back end, and adjust accordingly!