Whenever you lay your hands on a new food source, common sense dictates that you break your pigs into it gradually and build up the quantity slowly.
With pigs kept in an orchard, the apples will start to drop fairly slowly and infrequently at the start of the season, its natures way of doing what I've just described.
In addition to the odd bruised or manky apple, I'll be feeding my pigs the dry waste from my cider and apple juice making enterprise. The cheese ( mashed apples ) loses 70 t0 80% of its moisture at the end of the process. This apple waste will indeed start to ferment fairly quickly but this is where I have a cunning plan.
This year, I intend bagging the apple waste and freezing it in handy lots and then defrosting some each and every day to feed the pigs with. This will be mixed with pig pellets and or rolled barley.
Now this is where the cunning plan becomes even more cunning. Eventually my freezer will be filled to the brim with bags of apple waste but as the pigs consume them, they are actually eating their way into the freezer. In this way, by the time the pigs are ready for the chop, there's going to plenty of freezer space for them. See ! I told you that it was a cunning plan.
Topic: Apples (Read 9176 times)
