Hi we had 5 British lops from 6- 8weeks old. They arrived on nuts but came with a stomach bug and had to have 2 courses of antibiotics and in desperate to keep them going were feeding glucose water. After 4 weeks of treatments and nursing we move them out to ˝ acre of grazing. Fed along with weaner nuts. 4 pig were fine on the diet but 1 soon started to look poor and was not eating. After a visit from the vet and with the “you have done everything you can for it” ringing our ears my Mum turned back to the glucose water. Desperate to get something solid into her, Quaker oats from the kitchen was mixed into the water. Dad then got rolled barley for her. She ate this without problem, adding back in the nuts, she refuse the nuts even mixed with barley and picked them out of the trough and was poor again. It stayed on barley for the rest of the time, the other 4, still on nuts, were feed a mixed of the two (50/50). Having all had a bad start they killed out at 30 & 32 weeks from 75kg to 58kg the lightest being the barley only. She lost 6-8 weeks in illness and was the smallest piglet, I don’t think they did badly. They have made fantastic pork, not carrying much fat but enough for great crackling and bacon.
This year we are going to do a mix of nuts and barley plus greens from the veg garden etc.
Topic: Rolled barley (Read 12553 times)
