The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Button End Beasts on July 03, 2012, 02:10:28 pm

Title: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Button End Beasts on July 03, 2012, 02:10:28 pm: Sorry, I think this was discussed recently but I can't find the thread. I was wondering what peoples thoughts were on reducing a pigs diet before going to slaughter? Our last pigs, saddlebacks, that we kept for bacon and hams, had quite a lot of backfat. yes, I know that's what you expect in a rare breed but this was a little bit excessive. They had only been fed 4 lbs food each per day. Did someone suggest putting them on a diet for a bit before they go to slaughter?

many thanks for your help,
Beki
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: robert waddell on July 03, 2012, 02:32:33 pm: what age were they and what weight were they also what was the backfat depth :farmer:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: SallyintNorth on July 03, 2012, 02:45:15 pm: Yep, a fortnight on reduced rations will take a bit of fat off. Not sure how well it works if they are still outdoors, especially if it's cold... but someone here will ;)

If they are for your own consumption are you really bothered about the fat? Perhaps your butcher charges for butchering by the kilo? Otherwise, just cut the fat off at cooking time. For joints which are overfat, I cut some (not all) the fat off, trim out the fat I don't want to have to tip out while the joint is roasting and then if I want crackling, place the scored skin back on the joint, or cook it alongside. Same with chops, but the dogs get the cooked fat.

If you are wanting to sell the meat, then yes you may need it a little leaner perhaps - unless you can educate your customers! :D
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Button End Beasts on July 03, 2012, 07:02:52 pm: The Saddlebacks were about 9.5 months old with a dead weight of ~205lbs. On a rasher of back bacon, the fat was about 2.5 cm, meat, 4 cm. We were very good with dry food but we did have TONS of free apples to feed them.

I dont mind the fat on the bacon (and the dogs positively LOVE it!) but some of the people who brought bacon off of us did complain. But only those who probably normally buy supermarket cardboard. Those customers who love "real" meat, loved our bacon. Still, i think it could probably be a little bit leaner but I know the girls (Large Blacks) will moan like hell if they have to diet. :'(
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: robert waddell on July 03, 2012, 07:39:29 pm: it will take more than a fortnight to reduce the backfat at that depth it is only the backfat that is the guide 12-15 mm of backfat is what everybody has been conditioned to you kept them to long and any traditional breed is hard to keep the fat off you will have to be carefull of the large blacks going the same way with feeding and apples
i have heard comments from butchers that would take small scale pigs that they appreciate it is fattier but there is a limit to presentability
the supermarket pork is produced by British farmers the sheep peps don't slate the supermarket lamb the same way the pig people do :farmer:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: SallyintNorth on July 03, 2012, 07:46:46 pm: So long as you aren't charging rare breed pork (or bacon) prices for pork fat and can explain so (ie, are reducing the p per kg pro rata the excess fat content), then your customers should be happy - but may have to cut off some fat before cooking.

Personally however, I would be unhappy at 4cm back fat. I've paid for the feed that created that. Another time you could use Karen's rule of thumb to reduce the quantity of nuts according to the amount of apples you are feeding them. (Karen is it 4:1 or 6:1 you use?)

My butcher, for sale in his shop, buys commercial pork at 12mm backfat. He accepts that rare breed free range pork will be fattier, but wants it less than 19mm.

I don't know whether it's best - or achievable - to just keep the excess fat off them throughout, or to take off a couple of mms or so in the last fortnight. (Note that it is only a few millimetres that'll come off, not centimetres. Someone will know the exact figures.)
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Beewyched on July 03, 2012, 08:24:36 pm: Can only speak for the KKs here, but ...
I replace hard feed on a 4:1 basis, but never less than 1lb of hard feed if they're under 8-months or last month of pregnancy. Mine live in woodland, with very little lush grazing, so have to forage. When we had a field, the adults only had a handful of hard feed each per day when the grass was growing.
I've always tried (& occassionaly failed ::) ) to keep their weights to a "healthy" level - can't feel backbone, but can feel ribs or if they can't run then they're too fat ;D ;)
The most fat we've had from a KK is 2 inches, but she was a barren bossy boots ;)
:love: :pig: :love:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: MAK on July 03, 2012, 09:28:21 pm: Pigs on a diet before slaughter may just mean that they have been overfed. I guess if one is in a rush to grow a pig to make money then you have to buy in hard feed and run the risk of over feeding. I keep pigs for my ownconsumption so don't have to woorry too mucha bout fat proportions. I have no idea how old my pigs are and how many pounds of factory produced nuts they should be having.Pigs are competative at meal time so I am not sure how you can regulate the ammount of hard feed each gets. I tend to underfeedthem each morning so that the go out and look for their own food and maybe self regulate a little. If they free range in a field they will take what they want, sleep, run and feed again. i guess I have a rather simplistic approach but then i would only worry if I had to monitoe their growth and how much factory produced food they "should" have.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Button End Beasts on July 03, 2012, 10:21:36 pm: Sally, I meant that the fat was about 2.5 cm and the meaty bacon bit was 4cm. Even so it sounds like far too much fat.

The LBs are due to go off at 8 months old. We will measure them this week to get an idea of their weight, although last time we did this, following Tony Yorks method, we were miles off! Any other good suggestions?! We still have a good 6 weeks until they go.

Unfortunately, we only have a limited amount of space and our pigs don't have a huge field to roam around in. Their double tennis court sized enclosure looks like the Somme now! So they are completely reliant on pig nuts and brewers barley for food.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: robert waddell on July 03, 2012, 10:24:26 pm: it will be the brewers barley that is layering the fat on :farmer:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Beewyched on July 03, 2012, 10:26:00 pm: Aha - Robert you beat me to it ;)
Definately stop the barley - it's renowned for it's fattening tendancies in most stock :innocent:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Button End Beasts on July 03, 2012, 10:33:39 pm: Ahh, OK, I assumed the barley didn't have a lot of nutritional value to it. Think I'll cut that out right away then. Never mind our sheep and chickens love it. Thanks!
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Beewyched on July 03, 2012, 10:38:00 pm: HTH ;D
:love: :pig: :love:
Let us know how it goes :fc:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Herdygirl on July 04, 2012, 06:10:26 am: Soryy to hijack this but i have to tell you, i am learning an awful lot from this thread, am hoping to start keeping pigs in the next couple of months.

thanks folks
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: oaklandspigs on July 04, 2012, 08:58:00 am: A diet two weeks before slaughter will knock off some excess fat.

After 6 months of age, most pigs will tend to start to put on fat, so at 6 months you need to start to regularly feel your pigs, and feed to condition rather than formula. Easily feel the backbone, too thin, cannot find backbone too fat. You should be able to feel that backbone when you press on the spine.

Feed wise, a proprietary pig nut will contain the correct balance of the various constituents needed - Energy, Protein, Minerals, and vitamins. When you deviate from this , you need to consider the impact.

Commercially gown pigs wil go through up to 8 different feed formulations in their brief 5 month life to get just the right amount and balance of nutrients to grow them fast. Not what I would want as the result is cardboard, but does show how key the right balance is to get a supermarket spec. pig.

Barley for instance does not contain enough lysine which is needed for muscle growth, so much is used for fat instead - as part of a sows diet this may be ok, and if just growing for food for yourself, again might be ok, but if selling the result to people who look for supermarlet style meat you need to watch the body condition.

Some people do make the mistake of thinking that any food source will grow pigs, so look for a "cheap" alternative to proprietary pig nuts. This can (can, not will!) be a false economy, as the feed just goes to producing fat rather than meat, so any "saving" is wasted. The correct balance of energy (fats/oils), protein (and esp. the right sort of protein), vitamins and minerals are needed to grow a piglet at a good speed and in the right way. If the cheaper alternatives worked well, the propriety feeds would just contain that and cost less !

Nwo don't mis-understand me, I'm not knocking those that do supplemental or alternate feeding of fuit/veg etc. or use other ingredients in home mixes - we regularly feed fruit/veg and those people who can do home mixing and save some money are great - but it is much harder to produce supermarket spec that way, so you should do this with your eyes open - and feel for fat.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Tamsaddle on July 04, 2012, 10:55:07 am: I am trying to be ultra careful this year so our Tamworth and Saddleback weaners don't end up too fat, but even at 14 weeks, and appearing to the eye to have long and thin bodies, I am already finding it hard to "feel" the backbone. On a couple of them I can feel ribs, where their waist should be. Can they possibly be putting on fat yet? They are currently on 3.1 lbs/1.4 kgs nut each per day. Is this too much? I was thinking of really restricting them from 4 months +, but wonder whether I should be doing it sooner. Tamsaddle
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Fowgill Farm on July 04, 2012, 11:03:47 am: Tam
in my opinion you're doing the right regime, 3.1lb for 14wks is perfect, once you get to 4lbs+ then stay at that if you think they loading it on, don't diet them while they're growing. We maintain feed at recommended 1lb per month of age upto 20-22wks then cut back to 4lb, our back fat is approx 15-20mm which is what we want on our GOS.
HTh
mandy :pig:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Button End Beasts on July 04, 2012, 11:32:34 am: We are currently feeding our 5 pigs mainly pig nuts but, when we have barley, taking a scoop of pig nuts out of the feed and replacing it with 4 scoops of barley, e.g. As you would do with fresh fruit or veg on a 4 :1 ratio. I am guessing now, after all your replies, this would be too much. Any idea what is a good ratio with barley, eg if the pigs are on 4 lbs of food a day, how much of that could be made up of barley?

Interestingly, our last bacon pigs, the saddlebacks, we're not fed any barley and we substituted one 1 lb of pig nuts for 4 lbs of apples. And these were the fat ones, but then they were 9.5 months old, and they probably did get some extra apples! We didn't feel the spine to assess fat, we did try to work out their weight using a tape measure but got this very wrong. In fact, the weight was only just accepted at the small local abattoir we use.

Meant to feel their spines this morning at feed time but forgot as i spent so much time chasing one of the pigs around trying to get a tape measure around Curly Wurly, she was having one of it!
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Fowgill Farm on July 04, 2012, 11:40:53 am: Afraid i'm not very scientific but to me Barley is a'complete' food and i would probably feed it lb for lb.
My porkers go at 40" round the chest and my baconers at 45"+ (7.5-8mths old)

By the sounds of it you just let the older ones go on too long at 9.5mths old send 'em sooner! ;D especially with them being SB's.

Mandy :pig:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: SallyintNorth on July 04, 2012, 12:42:48 pm: The Newcastle document http://www.britishpigs.org/Newcastle_handbook_of_raw_materials.pdf (http://www.britishpigs.org/Newcastle_handbook_of_raw_materials.pdf)
says barley is a good cereal for pigs though as it is lower energy than wheat could be less useful in the finishing stages. It says that barely should be ground (or if not possible, soaked in water for 24 hours) to improve digestibility. It's 9% protein, 13% energy and a good source of lysine (0.32%.) On those figures, use it to replace pig feed at a ratio of 1:1 - in fact, it says that a dry sow or a finishing mix is likely to be 50% barley in any case.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Button End Beasts on July 04, 2012, 01:36:25 pm: Thanks Sally that looks like a very usefull document. Thanks too for everyone else's advIce.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: SallyintNorth on July 04, 2012, 01:48:32 pm: Quote from: Button End Beasts on July 04, 2012, 01:36:25 pm
Thanks Sally that looks like a very usefull document. Thanks too for everyone else's advIce.
It was violet originally brought it to our attention. Haven't seen her for a while - anyone know if she's okay?
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: oaklandspigs on July 04, 2012, 06:25:00 pm: Quote from: SallyintNorth on July 04, 2012, 12:42:48 pm
The Newcastle document http://www.britishpigs.org/Newcastle_handbook_of_raw_materials.pdf (http://www.britishpigs.org/Newcastle_handbook_of_raw_materials.pdf)
says barley is a good cereal for pigs though as it is lower energy than wheat could be less useful in the finishing stages. It says that barely should be ground (or if not possible, soaked in water for 24 hours) to improve digestibility. It's 9% protein, 13% energy and a good source of lysine (0.32%.) On those figures, use it to replace pig feed at a ratio of 1:1 - in fact, it says that a dry sow or a finishing mix is likely to be 50% barley in any case.

My understanding may be awry, but I thought the newcastle document stated that the lysine needed for growing pigs was 1.1% of Digestible matter, and that barley produced only .32%, meaning that overfeeding was needed to produce adequate proteins to make muscle, resulting in wasted intake or if fed 1:1 would result in slower growth.

Whilst I would agree that I would substitute on a 1:1 basis (just as I would not feed 3 MacDonalds burgers to make up for the fact that one meal would not supply sufficient vitamins), I would be more hesitant to suggest that feeding only barley would be a good regime.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: SallyintNorth on July 04, 2012, 06:37:53 pm: Quote from: oaklandspigs on July 04, 2012, 06:25:00 pm

Whilst I would agree that I would substitute on a 1:1 basis (just as I would not feed 3 MacDonalds burgers to make up for the fact that one meal would not supply sufficient vitamins), I would be more hesitant to suggest that feeding only barley would be a good regime.
I don't think anyone did suggest 100% barley, did they? Only looking at how much to reduce pellets if barley was being fed?

But yes, if straight barley was a significant proportion of the ration, the overall lysine should be watched. (Where would you get extra from? Is there any legal alternative - other than soya?)
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: oaklandspigs on July 05, 2012, 08:06:46 am: Sorry SiN had misunderstood.

There are s'posed to be mixes you can buy which have lysine and mineral/vits in, but suspect you'd need to buy in industrial qauntities, and have not seen a source.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: MAK on July 05, 2012, 01:24:45 pm: As far as I have read - Lysine is one of the 8/20 amino acids that can not be made but has to be ingested and is an essential building block in the synthesis of many long proteins ( elastin and colagen) . I gather that it is essential for the uptake of calcium for strong bones and important in the immune system. Meat is rich in lysine as are some fish but this dosn't help the pigs.

Lysine is found in eggs ( 7% of potien content), cheese and milk. It is also found in seaweed, spirulina, cottonseed oil, Apples, apricots, grapes, papayas, pears, alfalfa, beets, carrots, celery, cucumber, dandelion greens, soybeans (particularly tofu, isolated soy protein, and defatted soybean flour),parsley, spinach, turnip greens
Legumes ( any beans or pulses) and brewers yeast are all high in lysine.
I throw in an egg a day with the pigs hard food and veg mix but it seems that parmessan cheese is the real lysine winner. So a nice courgette, dipped in eggs and coated in parmessan could be a real treat for a pig.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: robert waddell on July 05, 2012, 04:18:06 pm: only in france MAK :farmer:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: SallyintNorth on July 05, 2012, 05:13:03 pm: Quote from: MAK on July 05, 2012, 01:24:45 pm
I throw in an egg a day with the pigs hard food and veg mix but it seems that parmessan cheese is the real lysine winner. So a nice courgette, dipped in eggs and coated in parmessan could be a real treat for a pig.
It'd be a treat for me, never mind the pig!

And if we're looking at supplementing lysine because we're trying to take advantage of some cheaper dietary components... I don't think using parmesan would result in an overall cost saving! :D
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: HappyHippy on July 05, 2012, 07:00:40 pm: The chap I'd spoken to at Sugar Mountain farm in Vermont http://sugarmtnfarm.com/home (http://sugarmtnfarm.com/home) raises pastured pigs and suppliments lysine via dairy products. He finishes 'big' pigs (Tamworth, Large Blacks, Hampshires etc) on a diet of 90% pasture and hay, 7% dairy and 3% roots.
He's running what I consider to be a big herd (40 sows, 4 boars) and doesn't buy commercial pig feed at all :thumbsup: He's been doing it this way for over 12 years too, so it must work :innocent:
Have a look at his website - loads of great info on there, and Walter was happy to answer all my pesky questions when I contacted him ;)
HTH
Karen :wave:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: oaklandspigs on July 05, 2012, 07:29:30 pm: He is also a very keen advocate of ignoring boar taint - and talks of 3 year old working boars being fine!
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: MAK on July 05, 2012, 07:53:06 pm: I would love to care for our pigs on the Sugar Mountain diet but short of harvesting the pasture and doing a "weigh in" before I give it to them I have no idea how to check the proportions as Karen described. I may be getting it wrong but it seems to me that the more roots, egg and dairy I give them in the morning then the less pasture they seem to consume. So I have taken to feeding a little less first thing - let them graze etc then judge if they need a feed in the evening based on the ammount of time I have seen them outside. They stay in if it is too hot or if there is snow but even if they are out grazing most of the day it is anyones guess what % of their daily diet they have eaten . I check the spine regularly and was happy with the fat proportion last year but I must say it has all been a little guess-estimate.
Anyone have any suggestions how best to let them free range but go for the Sugar Mountain diet as well ?
(oh we had no boar taint on the 1 year old Culn Noir I butchered last year).
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: HappyHippy on July 05, 2012, 09:26:30 pm: I'm not experienced in hay making/pasture calculations (I think Sally in t'north will be though ;)) but I reckon it's something like 2 ton of hay per acre per cut (ish !) so that might give you something to be going on with.

It's not 'just' grass at Sugar Mountain though, they have alfalfa, clover and other stuff too - I'll have a trawl through my emails and see if I can find the one that details it all and I'll post it here.

On the taint issue - I can smell it (but I am super sensitive nasally ::) :D) I have only ever smelt it in shop bought pork though and it doesn't seem to have any effect on Bruce or the kids ability to eat it - maybe Walter's one of the lucky ones who can't detect it or perhaps it's something to do with the diet........ now, there's a thought ;D
Karen :wave:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: SallyintNorth on July 05, 2012, 10:26:53 pm: Thanks for the vote of confidence, Karen :wave: but I don't know how to work out tonnages of forage as grazing. I do have a really good book tells you how to...

It won't be the same as working out tonnages of forage as hay/haylage/silage - it won't grow the same when it's being grazed, the pigs will spoil some and rootle other...

However, coming at it from the other end, Walter has some figures he's worked out :
Quote
the pigs drink about 3.5 gallons of whey per hundred weight of pig per day and eat about 0.8 lbs of hay per hundred weight of pig per day
Now at 20kgs per small square bale (50 bales to the tonne) that's one small bale lasting about one pig about 8 weeks - so the hay is not signifcant, I'd say. Mind, that's when they're on summer pasture - they get more hay in winter when they can't graze, he says. His 44 adults plus however many growers eat approx 50 tonnes of hay between them over winter. 40 sows - should be an average of at least 400 growers over the winter? If so, I calculate that each grower probably eats around 100kgs (5 small square bales) of hay over winter when not at grass?

Walter talks about 6 months to finish a pig on his system, slightly longer over winter.

So to rear a pig to 100kgs (two hundredweight), assuming a straight line growth over 6 months and therefore an average weight of one hundredweight, it will drink 180 (days) x 3.5 US gallons of whey, which is around 2400 litres. Plus the 5 bales of hay or pasture equivalent.

You need so much whey because it's nearly all water. Walter expresses it as 7% of the diet being whey (and other dairy), which you need because otherwise the pigs will lack lysine - I assume he means 7% as dry matter!

If you have a local creamery and can get those sort of quantities of whey for little or no money, you're home and dry. Otherwise, you're buying soya to get that lysine into them.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: princesspiggy on July 05, 2012, 11:21:03 pm: Quote from: SallyintNorth on July 04, 2012, 01:48:32 pm

It was violet originally brought it to our attention. Haven't seen her for a while - anyone know if she's okay?

yes im sure shes fine ;) ;)
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Ina on July 08, 2012, 03:29:24 pm: Does anybody here feed potatoes and other root crops to their pigs? I remember (long time ago, when I was young! - or younger, anyway...) farmers I knew used to feed mainly barley, potatoes, other root crops (neeps mostly), and excess milk or whey from their own farm, and it seemed to work. Don't know about quantities, though. (These pigs were kept indoors.)

Sorry - just realised the next thread is on potatoes. Duh. :-[
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: princesspiggy on July 14, 2012, 04:25:54 pm: Quote from: HappyHippy on July 05, 2012, 09:26:30 pm

On the taint issue - I can smell it (but I am super sensitive nasally ::) :D ) I have only ever smelt it in shop bought pork though

i was reading the "outdoor pigs" manual (1996) from defra yesterday. they stated that most supermarket pork is killed at 30-40kg liveweight and that young age is the reason we dont need to castrate routinely in uk.
would u get boar taint so young?
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: oaklandspigs on July 14, 2012, 05:32:27 pm: Castration in the Uk commercial herds 9both indoor and outdoor) is a thing of the past, but they slaughter at an early age to ensure no problem.
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: mwncigirl on July 17, 2012, 10:59:53 pm: I am now really confused! Great thread, but just wondering, (and I think this may have been covered in another thread....) but we have been feeding our pigs on finishers and they look like they have been laying on the fat. Would you use finishers or just keep to growers to minimise fat? Novice here, can you tell?!
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Beewyched on July 17, 2012, 11:27:44 pm: Not sure of your breed mwncigirl, but ...
If your pigs are getting overweight try & allow them more room to run about & go for a lower protein level feed (& maybe less of it) - but there will be others on here that can give you more accurate amounts depending on your pigs' breed.
:love: :pig: :love:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: mwncigirl on July 17, 2012, 11:43:01 pm: we have GOS x British lop/OSB 4 month old piggies
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: Fowgill Farm on July 18, 2012, 09:29:46 am: Leave them on 16% sow/weaner nuts, otherwise the GOS part of them will load on the fat. Grower is usually 19%+ and loads it on. On the 16% they'l do fine and be ready as porkers at 22 - 24wks old.
HTH
mandy :pig:
Title: Re: Pigs on diets before slaughter
Post by: mwncigirl on July 18, 2012, 10:57:49 pm: Thanks, I'll do that, not long to go now, really want to get it right!!