[drlizw]

Hi
I have 4  4m old weaners (my second batch of large black crosses), doing very well on outside grazing and sow nuts. 
In my cellar i have a sad bag of potatoes that have gone sprouty and wrinkly (not green, and I would eat them myself if desparate, but they're not as good as the tasty new potatoes that we now have available!) 
They have not entered my kitchen, so I think legally they would be fine to feed piggies, as they are garden waste rather than food waste, but if i had to cook them they would, of course, have to come into the kitchen...
so can I feed them raw? This may be a daft question, but all i am thinking is that John Seymour writes about using the aga to cook potatos for his pig... did he really need to?
opinions welcome!
thanks
liz

[Ladygrey]

Hi Liz 

I pop my raw potatos in a big cast iron pot and shove it in the coolest aga draw,
do this in the morning and by the afternoon they are cooked enough for the piggies

I do it simply because my pigs refuse to eat raw potato, they will eat raw potato peelings but not potato, they dont eat mushrooms or burnt toast either..

Jess

[HappyHippy]

I don't feed potatoes often, but when I do I cook them on a camping stove in the shed for the pigs 
We keep an 'outside' pot and knife - specially for the purpose so there can't be any worries about cross contamination  You really shouldn't take anything from your kitchen to the pigs (by law), so I would ditch the toast Ladygrey 
I know some folks have fed them raw, but the pigs can convert them more efficiently (I think) if they're cooked.
HTH
Karen 

[Ladygrey]

The toast was given to the pigs when my first two were tiny gilts by a visitor, they have never been given toast since
oh and the potatoes are grown in the sheep field and any small ones are cut up outside and then just brought inside to put in the wood-drying draw of the aga, which is never used for human food, I think this is ok 

Jess

[hughesy]

We feed spuds to ours fairly often. Cook them outside on a gas ring or on a fire sometimes if we're having one anyway. Have also used pigs to clear escaped spuds from last years spud patch and they ate the raw ones they found no problem. I believe they can use the nutrients more easily from cooked ones.

[SallyintNorth]

Raw spuds, unless green, won't hurt them - but it makes no sense to feed them in any quantity.

The thing about raw potato is that it interferes with the pig's protein absorption.  Protein is the most expensive component of the pigs diet, so it makes no sense at all to bulk up the diet with 'free' raw potato and then end up needing to add more expensive protein into the diet - or just make the pigs fatter and less meaty.

So, unless it's just the odd one or two, cook your piggies' spuds, folks.

[Factotum]

wood-drying draw of the aga

If the Aga is in your kitchen then it is definitely not OK.  Nothing that passes through your kitchen can be fed to your pigs - it is against the law.

Not wishing to frighten you, but during the 2001 Foot & Mouth Outbreak the first case was recorded at a holding that was feeding waste food to pigs.

Please cook your tatties outside.

Sue

[oaklandspigs]

As Sally says, raw potatoes are fine occasionally but pigs cannot make good use of them. 
 
We feed when they come form the greengrocers, but spread over several days if in quantity, and then to the sows who only need maintenance not growing.

[robert waddell]

potatoes are a cheep food if you have a source  for them        start to cook them and any cost advantage goes out the window with   gas electric and your time in doing it
factotum  it is just not as simple as hanging it on the door of the farm that the ministry blamed for the outbreak in 2001

[oaklandspigs]

factotum  it is just not as simple as hanging it on the door of the farm that the ministry blamed for the outbreak in 2001

Robert - now that's a whole different subject !! - It is interesting that the cause gets just a few lines in the mega report - and was never properly investigated - always makes you wonder what really was happening.  The Pivate Eye report on it also makes interesting reading, with reports of "incidents" many months earlier than the supposed outbreak site.  Guess we'll never really know the truth!

[MAK]

I cooked up the "end of season" spuds from the cellar just last week. I, like Happyhippy, keep a camping stove in the barn and cook up spuds, pumpkin, butternut and swede when they are ready to eat. I cook it the day before and add a pig flour suppliment if I over winter the pigs.
Massive cast iron cauldrons are common on farms around here - they were used to cook up spuds for the family pigs .