Iberian pigs refuse to eat a dead animal

Hi!

You guys have told me before that you feed dead farm animals to the pigs and the carcass will disappear quite quickly.

We suffered a loss of a baby sheep. The mother was unable to provide milk, we had quite a temperature drop and rain and our attempts over the last few days to feed the little one milk made from power (for sheep) were not successful.

I don't like to burry food needlessly so I attempted again to turn the loss into a gain for the pigs. Initially they were interested but then went on to wait for commercial pig feed. I put some of it on and around the dead baby sheep and all they did was slurping up the commercial pigs food (plant based) and biting at the dead sheep as it were another animal trying to steal their food.

It's quite strange and I'm beginning to believe that Iberian pigs are vegetarians that eat worms and other little critters from the soil but don't eat animals per se. Except when it's cooked like leftovers from the kitchen or dinner table. My is very astonishing is that they bite at the dead sheep as they do amongst themselves to tell a rival to go away. They don't bite in order to eat.

What do you make out of that?

Is the reason because the animal is intact and not chopped up into pieces?

Thanks

Stephan

Stephan Schwab wrote:

Is the reason because the animal is intact and not chopped up into pieces?

Probably.  Domestic animals tend not to want to eat food that doesn't resemble the food they've been raised on.  If you chop it up, there's a better chance they will eat it.  The smaller pieces the better, probably.

I can't say for sure what's going on, but my own pigs sometimes need to learn to eat new foods. In fact, if they hadn't been introduced to some foods as piglets, they don't eat them as adults. And while some of my pigs have been curious, testing new things to see if they are edible, while most of the pigs have not.

I do feed dead animals to my pigs, BUT they are cooked first. as a result I've been able to run my pigs around chickens, duck, lambs, kids, cats, puppies without the pigs killing them. But present them with a cooked dead chicken in their feed trough, and they will eagerly gobble it down feathers and all. Then go on to peacefully eat pasture grass among the chicken flock.

I now chopped it up. Let's see what will happen. I'll check back later and will report.

So far no interest in eating meat. It appears that they are completely on a veggie diet spiced up with critters from the soil.

I do not have an answer per say to your problem. All i can say is what my pigs have done.
When i bring them the stomach/intestines/lungs from a dead animal, they eat it right away. After having the meat hang for a few days(this was summer time) after i striped off the easy meat(legs and what not) i gave the rest to the pigs. this was mainly the hips and the back up to the neck with the ribs still intact.
Needless to say they dealt with the carcass very effectively, better than the chickens


I cannot tell if you are skinning your animals or if you are giving them to the pigs with the skins on. what are you doing?

Stephan Schwab wrote:Hi!

You guys have told me before that you feed dead farm animals to the pigs and the carcass will disappear quite quickly.

We suffered a loss of a baby sheep. The mother was unable to provide milk, we had quite a temperature drop and rain and our attempts over the last few days to feed the little one milk made from power (for sheep) were not successful.

I don't like to burry food needlessly so I attempted again to turn the loss into a gain for the pigs. Initially they were interested but then went on to wait for commercial pig feed. I put some of it on and around the dead baby sheep and all they did was slurping up the commercial pigs food (plant based) and biting at the dead sheep as it were another animal trying to steal their food.

It's quite strange and I'm beginning to believe that Iberian pigs are vegetarians that eat worms and other little critters from the soil but don't eat animals per se. Except when it's cooked like leftovers from the kitchen or dinner table. My is very astonishing is that they bite at the dead sheep as they do amongst themselves to tell a rival to go away. They don't bite in order to eat.

What do you make out of that?

Is the reason because the animal is intact and not chopped up into pieces?

Thanks

Stephan

Iberian hogs are pasture hogs (they far and away prefer acorns and other nuts along with grass), they won't eat meat from another farm type animal, those are the large pinks that mostly do that eating the body thing.
You can compost the dead animal quite easily, you just need to place the pieces of it in the center of a hot compost heap, should take no more than 6 weeks for all signs of the lamb to disappear.

Redhawk

Aside from the breed issue, I think folks that feed whole animals tend to have several pigs that are competing for food.  They probably stay a little more hungry than the pig owner with only a pig or two.