The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: NellieNoo on November 24, 2020, 09:13:37 am
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Hi all,
I know this has probably been asked a million times but I’m looking for some advice re feeding my two Kunekunes please.
They are 5 months old and I’ve had them on the Allen and Page feed since I’ve had them but this is now proving too expensive to get here in Ireland. After reading through a few posts I’ve decided to put them on a mix of sow and weener 16% and horse and pony mix 12%, and then maybe some grass pellets and haylage.
My question is how much of each feed should I give them? They are currently on 750g of the A & P feed divided in to two meals and I was looking to increase this to 1kg when they reach about 9 months old. They also have apples and carrots throughout the day. Any advice you could give would be greatly appreciated or if anyone has better suggestions for what to feed them.... My boys were a surprise birthday gift and will be kept as pets, so the last couple of months have been a bit of a learning curve!
Thanks in advance!
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Hi, I have had Kune- Kune. Not sure about the horse feed. You would need to check if it was OK to use for the pigs as some feeds are quite high in iron and sugar. If just for pets maybe sow rolls would be cheaper. I fed mine some warm soaked speedy beet in the winter, just a small amount mixed in with their nuts. We have a gas cooker in the caravan so used that for boiling potatoes, sometime boiled barley if my local farmer had some to spare. Mine had fruit and veg at lunch time as I spread their food out into 3 meals a day. Mine went for meat.
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Do you have a local agricultural store? They will probably have their own brand of pig nuts which will be a lot cheaper than Allen and Page. Do your pigs graze on grass? if so, you can reduce the pig nuts by about 50%. Especially if you are giving them apples or other fruit and veg. Be careful with Kune Kunes - they put on excess weight very easily.
It might be worth contacting the breed society.
https://www.britishkunekunesociety.org.uk/
I'm sure they will be able to give specific advice.
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Thanks both, yes I went to my local store the other day but they only carry the finisher feed, I will try another one this week to see if they have the sow and weener feed. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of choice here for pigs.
They have access to grass at the moment but at the rate they’ve destroyed my field there won’t be much left soon! Do you think the 750g each per day will be fine for them in just the sow feed once the grass has gone?
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How big is your field, NellieNoo? If they have eaten all the grass in two months it may not be big enough. Have they started to dig it up? If so, it may well turn into a mudbath over winter. Although pigs like a bit of mud it is not great for them to be kept in muddy conditions continually. Do you have access to any other land so that you can rest what they are on at the moment?
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https://www.britishkunekunesociety.org.uk/articles/kunekunekeeping.aspx
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The field is just over an acre, there’s still quite a bit of grass although my boys are epic diggers and it looks like a war zone out there.
I’ve just bought some electric fencing to give them a small area outside of their shed for the winter so that hopefully the rest of the field can recover and I can then start to give them more space. They have a small area of concrete hardstanding and I plan to put straw or bark all round the outside of the shed to try and keep the mud down a bit. My husband said he’d done his research when looking for the best breed to have but must not have gone on to any forums like this one otherwise he would have known that Kunes definitely do dig! That’s also why I’d like to find a food I can fill them up on without making them too porky in the hope it’ll stop them digging so much, or is that wishful thinking!?
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All pigs dig and all pigs will graze. Some more than others. They will especially dig up virgin ground. As the grass dies back and has less feed value they will look to supplement their diet.
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NellieNoo - it sounds like you have an excellent set up. I'm afraid Harmony is right - all pigs dig, although Kunes less than some. I have never found that giving more food stops the digging. It just means they put on more weight.................