The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Seven Acres on March 10, 2017, 03:33:21 pm
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Hi Guys and Gals,
I was just wondering if anyone mixes their own pig feed or what they feed their pigs.
Ours have lots of fresh veg and also roam on a few acres of pasture, which they are digging up nicely. Though we are finding it expensive to carry on feeding them bagged concentrates and are looking to make our own. Can piggies eat straights such as Oats, Barely, Corn etc? How should it be fed?
We are keeping our piggies to breed, so its a long term commitment rather than feeding them short term for meat.
Thank you in advance.
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Following! :pig:
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I don't know anyone who mixes their own ration but maybe someone on here does. I think it is probably a lot of work for a couple of pigs and you will need to add minerals and vitamins and balance your ration. I think you will need to research pig nutrition.
Whole grains will go straight through pigs so you need to buy rolled/crushed or have the facility to do this yourself. Once rolled/crushed the shelf life lessens. Wheat is a large proportion of bagged food. Barley will put down fat so you wouldn't want to feed to much to growers or breeding stock.
Young pigs convert food at the best rate and I don't think it matters whether you want finished pigs or breeding stock the important thing is to give them the best start. Neither wants to be fat. Equally, if you want to have healthy piglets and plenty of milk you need to feed a well balanced ration.
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where are you getting your feed?
I pay about £6.25-6.50/25kg, off the top of my head, direct from a mill 10 minutes away
But we do buy 2 ton a month.
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I do not believe anyone on here knows anything about mixing your own pig food
Certainly if the usual suspects had so much as an inclin they would have retorted in some way by now
Very interested in this myself and have priced pellet machines but yet to do the straits
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Not sure where gregorz is going with announcing that, but each to their own...
So, we'll be doing exactly this this year. With 3 vague principles:
1) if veg doesn't enter the house... so goes straight from field to pig, then it's legal food, as far as I understand it.
2) roots are a good staple, and can usually be bought by the tonne from a local supplier
3) barley meal used to be a staple pig food for people who didn't use swill. Barley meal is basically a course ground barley flour, which is mixed with water and fed to the pigs. This would be the bulk of food, supplemented by items 1) and 2) to add variety and trace elements.
Lots and lots of care needed to ensure they don't run to fat.... but once you've got the measurements right, it's easy.
I've consulted pretty widely on this (Not on the internet so much).
The trouble with places like this is that you don't get many 80 year old farmers on here... that period of animals husbandry before imported soy and engineered feed has a lot to tell us about how to keep animals.
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Growing pigs of native breeds need around 16% protein for healthy growth at the right time. Pigs aren't fully grown for over a year. "The Production and Marketing of Pigs" by H R Davidson, gives an exhaustive breakdown of the values and amounts of feed for the various stages of production. I buy bagged feed by the tonne, add (not substitute) surplus vegetables from the garden and orchard fruit from my neighbours (bartered for sausages) and add in soaked wheat or barley for the last four weeks of finishing, to give a layer of fat for good crackling.
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Where I am going with that #farmershort is that I do not think anyone on here mixes their own pig feed i.e. Buys the raw ingredients, mixes it, puts it through a pellet machine and produces their own pig feed- simple!
After reading your response, I still think this the case
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Where I am going with that #farmershort is that I do not think anyone on here mixes their own pig feed i.e. Buys the raw ingredients, mixes it, puts it through a pellet machine and produces their own pig feed- simple!
After reading your response, I still think this the case
Years ago we used to mill and mix our own feed a mix of barley, wheat, peas, beans and minerals (you need a mixing licence to do this in the UK) as pig numbers grew and life got busy we took to option to feed brought in pellet feed, milling feed is time consuming yes it saves money but in the long run our time is more valuable than the savings.
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Where I am going with that #farmershort is that I do not think anyone on here mixes their own pig feed i.e. Buys the raw ingredients, mixes it, puts it through a pellet machine and produces their own pig feed- simple!
After reading your response, I still think this the case
The problem with this is that hobbyists don't have the money to invest in an experiment like this, and those doing it seriously probably don't have the time, we're out there trying to make a living selling meat.
We're going to be doing more supplement/surplanting of pelleted food with waste veg/grains/bakery goods this year but can't say we'll be getting in to milling
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It would be great to know what the comparison is on say a tonne. I know the pellet machines are around 5-6 k
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So I take it that producing your own was quite time consuming KJA?
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It would be great to know what the comparison is on say a tonne. I know the pellet machines are around 5-6 k
are you planing pre-milled ingredients? if not how much for a mill to do that part of the job?
how much are you looking to produce?
i think it has a shelf life of about 3 months once milled. i would use 6 ton in that time at the current rate
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So I take it that producing your own was quite time consuming KJA?
Yes and time is something we are not rich in so we decided to just buy in giving us the time we much need.
Another thing is we were still buying in creep and grower for the younger stock so buying in for the breeding stock seemed the easy solution.
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Ive priced this up to buy in grain you need to buy bulk ie buying 20kg bags isnt cost effective the only saving is 1 tonne bags. Problem one you'll be spending hundreds and hundreds you have to have somewhere to store and mix (rat free) - here goes your time efficiency.
You can feed pigs sileage there is an organic study very favourable results.
If you can get hold of veg thats a bonus however you need to ensure you get the right % of grain to veg.
If you are looking at cutting costs on feeds I think its impossible pig farmers are already struggling and their buying costs are a lot lower than ours.
Keeping pigs outside is a straw saving. I buy organic feed from hi-peak delivered somewhere around £500pt. Ive fed ours on chicken layer for a while as pig food ran out with good results.
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Do you have a link for the feeding silage study please?
Cheers
David
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https://www.soilassociation.org/farming-growing/field-labs/feeding-silage-to-pigs/ (https://www.soilassociation.org/farming-growing/field-labs/feeding-silage-to-pigs/)
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Haven't read any of the reports but I would imagine that if rearing pigs on silage was viable we'd all be doing it already, given the relatively cheap and plentiful nature of the stuff. Can't see it working personally.
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there are farmers who wont change or refuse to beleive the evidence. Likewise farmers refuse to beleive in organic farming or mob grazing.
The results in the trail were favourable. Again pigs like to root and used to eat mainly nuts etc. So adding a percentage of sileage to the feed could cut costs drastically. There are pig farmers who feed enormous amounts of potatoes but the evidence says you shouldnt do this due to the lack of protein.
The study was done on outdoor pigs not intense indoor reared. I am sure there will be farmers doing this but not shouting about it.
We no longer make sileage due to the studies done on the gut damage, gas and amounts of muck animals produce on it - it is extremely acidic. Also the amounts of plastic produced is ridiculous and another cost in disposing when on a low input farm.
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We no longer make sileage due to the studies done on the gut damage, gas and amounts of muck animals produce on it - it is extremely acidic. Also the amounts of plastic produced is ridiculous and another cost in disposing when on a low input farm.
was starting to think this might be good for us, until this ...
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How did people achieve the 16% protein in the days before commercial pelleted pig feed was the way forward ?
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How did people achieve the 16% protein in the days before commercial pelleted pig feed was the way forward ?
I've noticed that many on here seem to forget that all manner of stock were raised perfectly well pre 1980.
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well yes but now we know scientifically what is optimum and can achieve it with a prepared food.
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well yes but now we know scientifically what is optimum and can achieve it with a prepared food.
Do we? I wonder.
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Thank you for all your replies.
I wasn't looking to 'mill' my own feed, I was looking to buy bags of crushed oats, barley, peas etc. and just mix my own to save cost.
The bags of breeding sow nuts at the local merchant, A Nichols (Cow Mills) is £7.34 per 20kg bag. From our understanding we should feed her 450g of food each day for each month of age, up to a maximum of 2.75kg per day, therefore a 20kg bag lasts her approx. 7 days, making her quite an expensive keep (she's as expensive as my horses)
We do get boxes of fresh veg for her and have been feeding that at a ration of 1:4, therefore 4kg of veg to 1 kg nuts as we were told.
Please do let me know if we are overfeeding her or doing anything wrong, don't want to hurt our piggy :)
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How did people achieve the 16% protein in the days before commercial pelleted pig feed was the way forward ?
Fish meal, meat meal, bone meal, peas, beans etc etc
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Thank you for all your replies.
I wasn't looking to 'mill' my own feed, I was looking to buy bags of crushed oats, barley, peas etc. and just mix my own to save cost.
The bags of breeding sow nuts at the local merchant, A Nichols (Cow Mills) is £7.34 per 20kg bag. From our understanding we should feed her 450g of food each day for each month of age, up to a maximum of 2.75kg per day, therefore a 20kg bag lasts her approx. 7 days, making her quite an expensive keep (she's as expensive as my horses)
We do get boxes of fresh veg for her and have been feeding that at a ration of 1:4, therefore 4kg of veg to 1 kg nuts as we were told.
Please do let me know if we are overfeeding her or doing anything wrong, don't want to hurt our piggy :)
Depends what fruit and veg your feeding they all come with different feed values for example cabbages are 10lb of cabbage is equal to 1lb of of pig nuts, 8 lb of swede or mangolds is equal to 1 lb of pig nuts potatoes have the best conversion but are best fed cooked. Where a bouts in the country are you ?
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How did people achieve the 16% protein in the days before commercial pelleted pig feed was the way forward ?
I've noticed that many on here seem to forget that all manner of stock were raised perfectly well pre 1980.
They were fatter and took longer to finish. They were fed swill which would have had some meat content.
My pigs will eat silage sometimes but then they drink and bring it back up.
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Hi Kja,
I wasn't aware of that, is there a table which would provide me with the information so I could refer to it? We are also finding it difficult to condition score her, everyone says you should be able to press firmly and feel their backbone and hips, but even though we have halved her food, I still can't do that, though I don't believe she is overweight, she has a waistline and is very active (she's a Berkshire cross GOS if that makes a difference)
We are in Somerset, between Bristol and Bath, an area called Keynsham.
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I think yet again we're in danger of generalising, and of preaching short-term experience as fact.
The best answer to these sort of things is "do the detailed research, and then experiment". You'll get lots of people telling you that you'll never do any good with it, but just look as the situation with beef cattle feeding at the moment:
After 60 years of trying to analyse and define everything that a cow needs to convert food to muscle, and trying to devise handling and housing systems to cut down on labour costs, people have finally realised that self-service silage and kale is the best and easiest way to keep cattle though the winter. Outdoors too! I've suggested this to local beef hobby farmers, and I get moans about field poaching and what-not.... well... that's because you're overstocked!
I dont question the pressures modern commercial farmers are under from the supermarkets (and it is the supermarkets, not the consumers), but smallholders are not in that game - nor should they be.
If you want to develop a system for your pigs to feed natural, local, produce, then I applaude you. It won't be easy, but you should certainly try, and let us know the results! I will be doing the same sort of thing when our pigs arrive, and am quite content to have years of trial and error getting the fat/meat/health balance correct.
The general retort to this sort of stuff (so I've found) is "oh, but what about animal welfare!!!"... *sigh*, you would hope that all smallholders have animal welfare at the forefront, but that doesn't mean we need to pretend to be commercial farmers, and copy their systems.
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I don't think anyone said don't. They have just given their experiences.
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I don't think anyone said don't. They have just given their experiences.
Perhaps you're right, I think it's just how it comes across sometimes when you just read a while pile of "know one bothers with that any more" and "it's too hard", and "they'll be too fatty". They may not singularly be saying "don't do it", but the combined message is the same. I simply wanted to offer a positive bent.
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Hi Kja,
I wasn't aware of that, is there a table which would provide me with the information so I could refer to it? We are also finding it difficult to condition score her, everyone says you should be able to press firmly and feel their backbone and hips, but even though we have halved her food, I still can't do that, though I don't believe she is overweight, she has a waistline and is very active (she's a Berkshire cross GOS if that makes a difference)
We are in Somerset, between Bristol and Bath, an area called Keynsham.
It comes from a old pig book which was gifted to me by a local pig farmer after he ceased keeping pigs just the 3000 !! his family used it as a mixing guide to mix their own feed. All of it contains fish meal or a meat meal so no longer allowed but we used to use it when mixing our own feed for fattening pigs and yes the out come was a fatter finished product compared to using a pellet we now use a finisher pellet and the produce is much more pleasing to the eye so more appealing to the buyer. And another note mixing feed also produces a slower finished pig in comparison to pellets so the savings are soon lost in keeping the pigs longer.
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This may be of use:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.britishpigs.org.uk/Newcastle_handbook_of_raw_materials.pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjoiNXB89jSAhVMJ8AKHVqrAa0QFggLMAA&usg=AFQjCNHGIS6rNlfJohcPQ6A6uXphS3S4ag (https://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://www.britishpigs.org.uk/Newcastle_handbook_of_raw_materials.pdf&sa=U&ved=0ahUKEwjoiNXB89jSAhVMJ8AKHVqrAa0QFggLMAA&usg=AFQjCNHGIS6rNlfJohcPQ6A6uXphS3S4ag)
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Thank you for all your replies.
I wasn't looking to 'mill' my own feed, I was looking to buy bags of crushed oats, barley, peas etc. and just mix my own to save cost.
The bags of breeding sow nuts at the local merchant, A Nichols (Cow Mills) is £7.34 per 20kg bag. From our understanding we should feed her 450g of food each day for each month of age, up to a maximum of 2.75kg per day, therefore a 20kg bag lasts her approx. 7 days, making her quite an expensive keep (she's as expensive as my horses)
We do get boxes of fresh veg for her and have been feeding that at a ration of 1:4, therefore 4kg of veg to 1 kg nuts as we were told.
Please do let me know if we are overfeeding her or doing anything wrong, don't want to hurt our piggy :)
This is what I am looking into at the moment so very interesting. I am going to be mixing my own goat feed so most of the same ingredients. Sure I also read pigs can have sugar beet.
Did you find anymore information?
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Interesting range of comments. I've looked at milling my own feed, have an old relic of a hammer mill that would happy do small batches, but knowing how time consuming and unenviable the task is I've put that plan on hold.
I get a feed wagon to come fortnightly, mix and blow it into a bin/feed trailer. If you were at that level of feed consumption rate and had the facilities to deal with it, this works to reduce costs.
Last winter l out wintered my breedings sows and others on stubble turnips which seemed a positive success. Equally would consider kale