[SueAllen]

Forgive me if this topic has been covered before....

All our previous pigs (bought in rare breed crosses) have been fed straights as we had a fabulous local cheap source.  We were a little bit hit and miss but managed to get the last batch spot on.  We've lost that source of feed now and are feeding commercial (Duffields) nuts.  The pigs are male, and approximately 4 months old.  Anyone got any sort of formula for feeding commercial nuts to rare breed crosses?  Duffield suggested ad lib.  I think not!  Would like some meat to go with my fat!!  

I am being a bit lazy, I have got books and the rest of the internet but asking people who have been there and done it seems to work for most things smallholding!

[HappyHippy]

Hi,
It's a pound of food for each month of age (up to a max of 6lbs per day I think) so your boys should be getting 4lbs a day each. Hope that helps.
Also, what are straights ? (Just being nosy, never heard of them before)

[SueAllen]

Straights - barley, peas, beans, oats.  We used to feed ground peas and beans and rolled barley mostly.  All organic.  All so cheap.  Very sad that the farmer producing them has finished.

[WinslowPorker]

Hiya, agree with HappyHippy that is the ratio for feeding my pigs, but i split the feed into to meals as i read somewhere they like to eat more than once a day, so they have half at breakfast and half for tea along with some bread and donuts 

[Helen87]

We've never fed nuts as we live in france and the only commercial feed available is a "farine" or coarse flour which can either be fed dry or as a mash. It sounds similar to "straights" but milled into a flour. We work on the principle that they should get enough feed that it takes them 20 minutes to eat. We split this into 2 batches am and pm. If they have food left one day we cut back a bit. A big thing in france is to feed nettles. Ours have a large bag of nettles (cooked) mixed with their flour and scraps. They love it and it's free! The rules on pig feeding are a bit more relaxed here I think providing it is for an "elevage familial".
Not sure if it's a help but the breeder told us to feed them as much as they wanted to eat..
Good luck

[little blue]

cooked nettles... do you boil them then?
nothing of ours will touch them, which seems a waste to me...

[Hilarysmum]

We are in Brittany and have no problem getting pig nuts; have  you tried ordering them in (if you still want them)?   

[mmm]

Ive done quite a few berkshire x large white & saddleback x large white.

The 1st batch I did i fed farmgate pig fattener pellets. I fed 1kg per day per pig( split into 2 feeds ) until they were 16 weeks, then upped it to 2Kg per day per pig up to 26 weeks when they went. The back fat was between 12-16mm & they weighed 100kg live weight or 75+ kg dead weight

[Hilarysmum]

little blue, my friends swear that turkeys eat nettles.

[little blue]

my neighbour has a couple of turkeys... though not sure I fancy poking nettles through the fence!!
At the moment I have a load drying (nettles, not turkeys!) and I'm hoping to disguise them with  a load of grass/hay for the goats and pigs

[Hilarysmum]

Do you feed hay to your pigs? 

[little blue]

yes.... though they make beds outside with it too !!