Twp pig questions

[crazycritter]

First question - what do you feed your pigs? I want to avoid commercial pig food ( not sure why just want to see what it tastes like) my original intent was cracked corn soaked in milk with cooked eggs and shells and scraps with raw honey on them. Problem is- my cow got sick and I had to dry her off early ( not even bred) so no extra milk. Something has taken out more than half my chickens so eggs are also way down. I made a deal with some locals to save me good kitchen scraps that i pick up twice per week in exchange for farm eggs. I now have  barely have enough to feed us and get scraps. The cost of cracked corn is the same as pig feed, i am able to get ground barley with soy fairly inexpensive so I am going to add that. 
How do I know they are getting enough to eat? I try to leave their food dishes full but they end up dumping them. 

Question 2- will small pigs kill and eat other animals? 
I had a lot of commotion here the other night and during it I (or someone else) left the pig door open so they were running free in the barn. I had left them be till my husband got home to help me put them back- I could have done it but I was wore out and my baby was already scared so the pigs screaming would have made it worse, I just shut the barn up. Last night I went out and seen that my lamb was dead -could have been natural as he was disabled and he already outlived what the vet said he would but he seemed fine that morning so I am not sure. Obviously the pigs were eating him ( no blood to be found either in the body or out) but I can understand that. Do you think they killed him? I did not investigate the body as it was not whole anymore and my nerves are so frazzled I did not want to deal with it last night, the smell was awful. 


Would you let them continue to eat it- it is cold here so I was not worried about spoiled meat and he had been checked out by the vet recently so I do not believe he was diseased, he was not able to fully stand upright to eat so vet said that would eventually take him out. The lamb was about 70-80lbs so that is a lot of meat to just throw away but not sure how good it is to let pigs eat it. 

[suzorse]

I can not tell you weather the pigs killed the lamb or not , but are you cooking the scraps before you feed them as that is important , I do not feed scraps ever , as I do not feed meat to my pigs , I feed only fruits ,vegies bread sometimes ,dairy when I have it , and a custom ground feed , it has corn wheat peas vitamins and minerals and soy + other things non animal in it ,I would keep them pigs locked up tight as a drum ,in case they did kill the lamb as it is not unheard of in slop feed pigs for them to kill things
Suzanne

[crazycritter]

I do not normally feed them meat- just cooked eggs for protein, shells for calcium but i did have some leftover burgers once and they loved those I am only collecting fruit and veggie scraps from others, i dont want to trust others cooking or that pork meat would get mixed in.
My pigs are normally locked up tight but I had some trespassers here the other evening so after the police and everything else with that, I did not have anything left in me to chase them down and I thought they would be fine.

[finallyfarming]

What an awful thing to have to see, especially since the lamb was a pet! I think it is possible that a lamb that couldn't walk was killed or just died. I don't think you will ever know and I wouldn't worry about it. I am sure by now there isn't anything left of him, but if they haven't finished, I would let them clean up. Good protein. pigs are scavengers by nature and they need the protein. Plus it is a whole lot easier to let them clean up than you having to do it.

You don't say how old the pigs are, but the younger they are the more protein they need. If they are close to butchering you could get away with fermenting corn or barley along with the scraps. If they are breeders they need a more complete diet, babies need more protein too. I was in your situation with last years pigs. I ran out of milk about 6 weeks before butchering and they got fermented barley as a base and scraps from the kitchen as well as the last of the garden. They did fine and tasted excellent! If your pigs are younger or keepers I would just go with commercial pig food until things change.

Pigs are wonderful eaters, they will eat as much as you give them. You need to feed them based on their lifespan, 6 months or 6 years? Without knowing more about your pigs I can't really advise, and I only have experience raising pigs for the freezer.

[crazycritter]

Oct 30, 2015 9:37:39 GMT -5 finallyfarming said:

What an awful thing to have to see, especially since the lamb was a pet! I think it is possible that a lamb that couldn't walk was killed or just died. I don't think you will ever know and I wouldn't worry about it. I am sure by now there isn't anything left of him, but if they haven't finished, I would let them clean up. Good protein. pigs are scavengers by nature and they need the protein. Plus it is a whole lot easier to let them clean up than you having to do it.

You don't say how old the pigs are, but the younger they are the more protein they need. If they are close to butchering you could get away with fermenting corn or barley along with the scraps. If they are breeders they need a more complete diet, babies need more protein too. I was in your situation with last years pigs. I ran out of milk about 6 weeks before butchering and they got fermented barley as a base and scraps from the kitchen as well as the last of the garden. They did fine and tasted excellent! If your pigs are younger or keepers I would just go with commercial pig food until things change.

Pigs are wonderful eaters, they will eat as much as you give them. You need to feed them based on their lifespan, 6 months or 6 years? Without knowing more about your pigs I can't really advise, and I only have experience raising pigs for the freezer.

These are feeder pigs, I have 6 and they are all freshly weaned. I have no intentions of breeding till I learn a whole lot more. I am not sure what breed they are- they are brown with little things that hang from the gowels. I was not very picky as I am just learning and these guys were sold to me at an extremely cheap price for fast sale, paid $250 for all 6 plus I had to assist with castrating his little ones. plan to keep one, sell the others to family this go around so I can get feedback on taste. 
My friend 

[haecklers]

Sound like maybe red wattle.

Pigs will kill and eat things sometimes, but if they find a dead animal they will definitely eat it. I have a couple I suspect of eating chickens they manage to trap, tho I've never seen them actively hunting them.

You'd definitely want to cook pork before letting pigs eat it, but other kinds of animals I think are pretty safe, there aren't many parasites or diseases they can pass to them that way. We let our 2 guinea hogs eat our cow when she died and we had finished getting off as much meat (for the dogs) as we could. Of course those are the two that killed and ate their whole litters (except for one lucky piglet) so maybe it did give them a taste for meat...

[crazycritter]

Oct 30, 2015 10:48:53 GMT -5 haecklers said:

Sound like maybe red wattle.

Pigs will kill and eat things sometimes, but if they find a dead animal they will definitely eat it. I have a couple I suspect of eating chickens they manage to trap, tho I've never seen them actively hunting them.

You'd definitely want to cook pork before letting pigs eat it, but other kinds of animals I think are pretty safe, there aren't many parasites or diseases they can pass to them that way. We let our 2 guinea hogs eat our cow when she died and we had finished getting off as much meat (for the dogs) as we could. Of course those are the two that killed and ate their whole litters (except for one lucky piglet) so maybe it did give them a taste for meat...

You can feed pork to pigs? I thought it would cause some sort of issues- or maybe I watch too many end of the world movies with humans eating humans.  The chickens are free range so they are always eating and such with the pigs and they have never bothered them. I do think the lamb just died and I cant blame the pigs for taking a free meal. It kinda grosses me out to see them chewing on my little buddy but I was expecting his death and can't see the point in wasting fresh meat just because he was a pet, I did cover his face with straw though. 
It's also sort of neat, I mean I never would have thought they would drink the blood but it is high in nutritional value, some cultures survive all winter by blood letting their cows ( small stab to the jugular, take a drink and close the wound) sounds awful but depending on where you live, survival is everything. 

[finallyfarming]

If your piggies are just weaned, I would bet they did not kill the lamb. They don't seem to get really good at hunting or even scavenging until they are almost adult. If your pigs are from a grazing background, (which the wattles suggest) you can supplement them with hay and alfalfa, put them on pasture if you have any this time of year and try to stock up on pumpkins. With six pigs this may not work, for two it worked great, but they love cooked food. I have a wood stove and all winter I will have barley cooking for the cow and pigs, with pumpkin and winter squash that I buy by the truckload the day after Halloween. Everything edible gets thrown in the pig pot, they love it! It feels good to feed them a warm meal in the winter. And ask all your relatives who are getting pigs to clean their freezers. Amazing how much mystery meat there can be in a chest freezer and it makes great pig soup! Squash, barley, meat of some kind, perfect for omnivores of all types. Even if it just a top dressing to regular pig food.

[haecklers]

Most people don't feed pork to pigs, but if you will feed them scraps or something that could have pork in it then it's best to cook it fully.

If chickens go in with the pigs there's no way of knowing how much the pigs eat and how much the chickens do - I found out our chickens were eating almost as much as the one pen of pigs - we have around 85 chickens.

We feed ours fermented whole kernel corn that we can get non-GMO for $6.35/50lb bag. It does lack enough protein for the piglets, tho, so we supplement it with pig pellets and scraps. I highly recommend fermenting the corn - they love it and it keeps them healthy with all the probiotics at every meal. It's good for the chickens too.

[sweetiepie]

They need their feed to contain 16% of protein. I got mine from either 1.5 gallons (.9 gallons will still get good growth) of milk or one dozen boiled eggs per 100wt. I realize you don't have either of that. Do you have any nut trees? I used up a bunch of sunflower seeds that got worms in them before I could get them harvested. They must be cooked though. For the grain part I fed fermented grain. (1/4 corn, 1/4 wheat, 1/4 barley, 1/4 oats) It's what I had available but you can use just barley and corn fermented or cracked. I fed a quart per pig per month they were old. They were about 6 months old when we butchered and they weighed about 275 lbs.

[briarrose]

I raise pigs and feed ground wheat and barley mix. They also get both alfalfa and grass hay. They get their protein and lycene requirements from the alfalfa. My breeders are kept on a strict ration so they don't go over weight. My butcher pigs get unlimited feed. Pigs will Always tip over a bowl or pan. If you have access to it, you can cut an old water heater in half, using a grinder make the sides smooth and then place 2 rebar cross pieces, one on each end so that about 2 foot stick out on each side. Makes it Really hard for them to dump it. Also works great for waterers. My pigs get NO meat or meat products. Once they get the taste of meat they are more likely to go after the chickens and such. Any way, my girls are fat and sassy and healthy and produce nice sized litters with nice sized babies on this diet. I also cut them grass when I have it.

[crazycritter]

Thank you all for the responses. I love the pumpkin soup ideas, lots of left over pumkins to be had right now.
For furmenting the corn.... I read that I just pour the corn in a bucket, add water to fully cover and a cup of ACV? Is this correct? Maybe I can add the barley with soy to furmentation or just feed that ground?

[lew92]

I am feeding this years pigs with fermented corn and oats, soybean meal to increase the protein, about a half gallon of milk per day, a loaf of bread, and about a half of a pan of fodder per day, split into two meals. I also top dress with a mineral/supplement made for pigs, so it has lysine in it. Also a couple of eggs, shells and all, when I have them available.

These are American Guinea Hogs that I got from eljay about 2 months ago and they are growing great and not getting fat, just solid. Though their jowls are jiggly!

I have read that fermentation increases the lysine in grain, but don't know that for sure.

I also throw out kitchen scraps, chopped apples and other fruits so they have things to dig around for after they've finished their ration. We put mixed grass/clover hay in their shed for bedding and they eat it, too.

I do feed meat leftovers to the pigs and chickens. Pigs get cooked beef and chicken, chickens get cooked beef and pork. Just a bit of a phobia for me to feed animals their own kind, I guess. The protein is really good for them.

Here are a couple of threads on fermenting: familycow.proboards.com/thread/81006/question-regarding-fermented-feed-results

familycow.proboards.com/thread/62543/ferment-grain-cows

[eljay]

My pigs are getting fermented corn, barley and soy. I'll be switching them over to barley fodder in the next month. I also add pig mineral to their feed whether it's fermented of fodder. Mine get most of the kitchen scraps unless I save some out for the chickens.

[crazycritter]

What is fodder? Google brings up many interesting things

[lew92]

Check in the Pasture Management and Feed section - there are at least 4, maybe 5 chapters about fodder pinned at the top of the section. WAY too much to summarize for you here!

[Kelsey]

Just in case anyone is reading this thread and wondering...
If the pigs are for your own use, you can obviously feed them anything you want. If you ever sell pigs or pork, however, you need to cook any feed besides pure grain feeds or pig pellets. That includes restaurant waste, kitchen scraps, meat scraps (obviously), etc.
Here in WA, you are required to have a "permit to feed food waste" that stipulates the cooking time and temperature. I believe this is required in every state.

I am bringing this up because in WA this year, there was a massive recall by a slaughter house (a small, family run slaughter house that happens to be one of only a couple USDA pig facility in W WA) - basically this whole summers's inventory. There was an odd strain of Salmonella that popped up and sicked many in the state. The state and feds are in the process of tracking down where the infected pigs came from. Of course they can't do on-farm testing of pigs unless the farms want to allow them (I don't think any do), but it very well might have come from a small backyard farm - or one of the large farms that supplies pigs (in MT or ID).
I imagine if they were to find out (somehow) that a farm was feeding unprocessed slop, that farm would be 100% responsible for the outbreak and the dozens of people who were in the hospital.

[suzorse]

ID has rules on feeding slop , has to be cooked to a certain temp , and rules for selling slop fed pigs to other people , so I do not feed slop or table waste to my pigs , I feed that to my chickens if I have any table scraps ,
Suzanne

[crazycritter]

Wow, thanks for the information, I will be looking into it. Other than the down lamb though, I do cook everything they get and the kitchen scraps are just peelings and such from fruits and veggies- I assume they are safe as long as they are not moldy. I am going to be making my own pig feed with a friend from now on- she grinds her own corn, barley, soy and such in large batches as she raising a few hundred pigs yearly. I originally did not want this rout as I was hoping for a different taste, her pigs are usually tough and the bacon had to have greese added to cook it so I figured it was her feed regimen. She has a good client base and a year long waiting list for her pigs so I figured it was just a difference in personal taste but maybe it's breed as well.
I am very much enjoying getting to learn all the ways of how how food gets to the dinner table and at what cost. A very humbling experience for a young city girl that believed chocolate milk came from brown cows as a child!

[ike]

We raise russian boar cross and we feed alfalfa and grain. No soy.
One of the best foods for them is actually rabbit pellets. They will put on weight in a hurry on that stuff.
It is high protein, 16+% and has vitamins and minerals for them.
We feed wheat, barley, and oats, sometimes corn. Last year we fed wheat, this year is oats. They get alfalfa as well. The leafier and more tender the better. They love alfalfa.

Soy is a phytoestrogen and will screw with the pig hormones as well as yours. We do not eat soy or animals that were fed soy. We have seen health improvements from avoiding it.

Most pigs will do well on alfalfa and whatever else you give them. They always need belly rubs.