The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: harry on September 26, 2011, 07:04:37 pm
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i got a bg of horse carrots the other day and have been feeding a few each day..4 days to my KKs, i have since been told i need to cook them ..is that correct..... is that also the case for spuds. turnips and sugar beet etc...thanks
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hi
we fed ours raw carrots and are fine
its potatoes need cooking
Mx
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we fed ours raw carrots and are fine
its potatoes need cooking
Same here
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we dont cook anything not even potatoes never have and so far no problem :farmer:
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We feed raw carrots but have never tried raw potato. Therefore intereted to hear Robert feeds raw potato. Maybe I wont worry so much if a few potato peelings get mixed in with the other veg peelings. All peeled in an outhouse straight from the garden of course.
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we fed raw potatoes to our pigs for a couple of years without any problems. So as I see it there is definitely no need to cook them, at the end of the day it is your preference. Why not give them some saw and then you can see how it goes yourself. :pig: :pig: :pig:
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That's good to hear, robert and lill. I had heard that the thing about cooking spuds for pigs was mainly so that they could extract more nutrition from the tuber and not because they would make them ill fed raw, so it's great to know for sure they'll not be harmed by the odd raw one.
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we feed raw potatoes too and so far no problems :wave:
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Don't forget to cut off any green skinned parts on the spuds as this is poisonous (cyanide) as are the growing tops and flowers, the same as tomatoes and peppers, all the same family.
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I always feed the pigs the tops of potatoes and never had a problem. I would think you had to eat an awful lot before you get cyanide poisoning. I really don't understand this thing about cooking things, they are PIGS they do not cook their food in the wild. Some of my pigs live in the woods and I've never caught them with their camping stove. :D
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But have you caught them growing spuds ::) ;D ;D
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they just wont leave anything for a rainy day :farmer:
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Whilst John Seymour ('Self Sufficiency' author) lists cooked potatoes under food, he also mentions keeping pigs on a field of potatoes or allowing them to forage after main harvest so it must be OK. I'm sure Ive seen commercial pigs after-grazing a potato field. I bet the cooked potato thing is a calorific thing (maximising absorbtion and producing a warmth hit - warmth seems to be a big factor in food --> meat conversion). Great Forum, thanks! Our first 4 Saddle backs are arriving on Saturday yeay.
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FiB welcome to the world of pigs, you will soon be boring the pants off everyone with your tales of pigs. Enjoy them and be prepared to get addicted. :thumbsup:
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i got a bg of horse carrots the other day and have been feeding a few each day..4 days to my KKs, i have since been told i need to cook them ..is that correct..... is that also the case for spuds. turnips and sugar beet etc...thanks
I would feed them raw, but just not carrots as their base diet, I would also feed them pellets so that they get a variety of foods. They also like a bit of greenery from the garden. Scraps out of the bucket from the kitchen is fine as long as it does not have meat in it. The old plants out of your vegi patch are also fine, pigs will find a spot for them in their diet.
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Scraps out of the bucket from the kitchen is fine as long as it does not have meat in it.
Again, envious of you in Western Australia, Blonde! Over here, it is illegal to feed pigs any food waste that has been in any kind of kitchen, even a kitchen in a vegan establishment.
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Scraps out of the bucket from the kitchen is fine as long as it does not have meat in it.
Again, envious of you in Western Australia, Blonde! Over here, it is illegal to feed pigs any food waste that has been in any kind of kitchen, even a kitchen in a vegan establishment.
That is an interesting comment............I know an english vet that tells me it is fine.......to feed the kitchen scraps to the pigs,a s long as their has been no meat near it.... we are not allowed to feed meat, only meat meal, and blood meal.
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Scraps out of the bucket from the kitchen is fine as long as it does not have meat in it.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ! Not in the UK it's not :o
In the UK it is ILLEGAL to feed any food which has passed though a kitchen, be it commercial, domestic or even veggitarian.
Karen x
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Scraps out of the bucket from the kitchen is fine as long as it does not have meat in it.
Again, envious of you in Western Australia, Blonde! Over here, it is illegal to feed pigs any food waste that has been in any kind of kitchen, even a kitchen in a vegan establishment.
That is an interesting comment............I know an english vet that tells me it is fine.......to feed the kitchen scraps to the pigs,a s long as their has been no meat near it.... we are not allowed to feed meat, only meat meal, and blood meal.
Oh there's no medical or veterinary reason, Blonde, just the insanely overbearing and pointless bureacracy we have to put up with over here.
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We have pointless bureacracy here too...you are not alone there. If the abattoir find a bone in the pigs guts we area in big trouble.
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I know it seems like pointless bureacracy, but someone, somewhere has researched and decided that because of the potential cross contamination from 'unsafe' meat products (imported meat from countries where FMD etc are present) that feeding kitchen/catering waste is a potential source of disease. So it's a blanket ban for everyone ::)
Whether we agree (or not ;)) if we decide to keep pigs, we should only do so if we're prepared to follow the guidelines/laws relating to that. It can't be one law for the big commercial guys and another for smallholders/pet pigs - ALL pigs should be fed in accordance with the law. Otherwise it will only be a matter of time before we suffer another major disease outbreak. I don't want to be in any way responsible for that - that's why I stick to what 'the powers that be' say ;)
Karen x
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I am a law-abider, Karen, but I can and will exercise my right to express my opinion about laws which are ill thought through, do not address the original problem and/or cause more of a problem than they set out to solve.
So far in my experience, any regulation originating in Defra is more than likely to be all of the above. It makes me seethe because (a) when the regs are stupid, more people will avoid / evade them, which is usually worse than having no reg at all, (b) it is not harder, indeed it is usually easier, to implement good regulations which offer some benefit to all those affected, and (c) Defra treat farmers with the utmost contempt, are dismissive and rude when we question them during their so-called 'consultations' and yet continue to implement rule after rule after rule which fail to solve any problem properly, all of which cause disruption and cost them and us money.
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Our boys get carrots regularly but not as their prime food. They love them raw and we've not noticed any ill-effects from them. The goats like them, too, but only the smaller ones as they seem to have trouble with chomping up larger ones.
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With more and more food being brought in from third world countries ,Africa, South America, the Far east etc, where foot and mouth is rife it is vital that meat originating from abroad is kept well away from your pigs. and we all know that Defra is quite capable of releasing it's own brand from it's own labs whenever they feel the need.