[Fowlman]

A question raised recently and one i have often pondered myself. Do any of you feed cattle nuts to your pigs and if so why and is it beneficial financially or otherwise ? Or is it a big no no full stop ?


If you don't ask you never know.

[JulieWall]

Might be worth comparing the ingredients labels, it may not contain certain vital nutrients which pigs need and cattle don't. It might be ok for an emergency feed but perhaps not as a permanent diet.
Ruminants have a completely different digestive system to pigs, who have one similar to ours. they digest with enzymes like us whereas ruminants digest bacterially. The pigs may struggle to obtain the nutrients they need from fibrous matter that needs bacterial action to break it down. The ruminant has four stomachs so the food is much longer passing through, giving it time to be fermented. Feeding cattle food to pigs may turn out to be a false economy if the pigs don't thrive.

[Fowlman]

Thanks Julie. When the question was raised one person replied he had been feeding cattle nuts to his pigs for years with no problems. I understand it doesn't work the other way because of the high copper content in pig feed.

[hughesy]

Read the labels and compare the ingredients. There will only be small differences. Modern pig feed is hardly a pig's natural diet anyway. We've fed many different types of animal feed to ours, including maize, rolled oats etc as I used to get cheap out of date stuff from where I used to work. Never had any problems.

[shygirl]

id be concerned about the vitamins over the longterm, ie magnesium and salt.

[hughesy]

Maybe. But if we're talking about porkers there is no long term. Might be a different story for breeding stock.

[shygirl]

salt poisoning can happen pretty quickly. you'd have to study the ingredients but is cattle food much cheaper than pig food to be worth the effort? the beef stock we buy is greener than pig food so im thinking it is grass based (il have to check)- which isnt so digestible for pigs - who are usually fed wheat / barley.

[Fowlman]

Thanks all. I shall compare ingredients and go from there. Yes they are porkers Hughesy.

[JulieWall]

I just wish the food was cheaper full-stop, what a price it all is!

Does anyone find that mixing their own works out cheaper?