The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: StephB on June 23, 2012, 01:14:19 pm
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Hi all,
I have 3 Landrace x saddleback weaners, all 12 weeks old. They are outside in a large 100m x 30m paddock with an arc.
Their paddock is next to my veg plot, so anything that is abit holey or not tip top for the kitchen gets chopped up on my potting up area and chucked into the pigs trough, but for some reason they don't really seem that interested in any of it ::) .
I have tried cabbage, carrots, broccoli, swede. Is this unusual or am I doing something wrong?? I was under the impression that pigs ate ANYTHING. :-\
xxx
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Mine don't seem very keen on them either and they are now 16wks old, I think that they are getting enough to eat from there pellets and the abundance of grass in their paddock.
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Mine are nerly 15 weeks old and they don't seem keen on veg either. I have tried carrots, broccoli, cabbage etc both raw and cooked but mostly they don't want it. They did eat some dwarf green beans yesterday but seemed to prefer them once they had trampled them in the mud. ;D
Now give them fruit and thats a different matter. I sometimes buy cheap avocados. They love those and I love to see them with the green all round their mouths. Cucumber and melon are both favourites too.
Sally
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In the past we have had some that just weren't interested in veg, last autumn we had tonnes of apples and the same pigs wouldn't touch them either! I just hope the ones we have this autumn are more interested!!
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Ours like the stalks of broccoli, celery tops, peppers, root ginger in particular, but are not keen on things like cabbage wot I plant for them :-\
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Cant belive people pigs dont like cabbage, my lot get ready prepared raw veg from a food preperation plant and they love it all but they take the cabbage even before the pig nuts ::)
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tell them if they dont eat all their veggies there will be no pudding!!!
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I've tried that. It didn't work :(
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The only things mine don't like are leeks and onions. Even eat banana, skins cabbage, :thumbsup:
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I don't give any of my animals anything out of the onion family
Bannanas on the other hand we get them by the full box and both the pigs and goats go mad for them
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Mine will eat all veg apart from onions, leeks, swedes and celeriac, though they will eat swedes if there's nothing else but celeriac....they would rather starve, they do, however like celery ::)
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Maybe it is a time of year or age thing. If they have enough grass and weeds to root around in ( and pellets) then they leave the veg. Autumn may be different. We overwintered pigs last year and cooked up a soup of all the above root veg and served it with their flour - they ate all but raw root veg earlier in the year they left. Last years ate cabbage, sprout etc leaves whenever we chucked them in but not raw roots.
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Thanks for all your replies. I am relieved to hear that it isn't just mine that are fussy devils.
Must admit they are on a fresh paddock as we only plan to have three pigs per year, during the summer as think that will be more than enough port for a family of four :o .
Maybe I might try slightly cutting back on the quantity of pig nuts and see if that increases their veg consumption. Was really hoping to be able to convert my wasted veg into yummy pork :pig: .
Thanks again everyone.
xxxx