I'm kind of surprised at the amount of food I'm getting from the apple trees for the pigs. Granted, the trees are mature, but every day for a couple weeks now I've been pulling off apples and picking up drops, and there are still more on the other two trees I've yet to thin. As time goes by the apples are getting bigger now too so it takes just 20 min or so to fill the 2 gallon bucket. I'm pulling off all the ones with bug bites, leaving 1 every 3 inches for now and will thin again to 1 every 6 inches when I've given them all a once-over. I'm not decreasing their other feed, but they're down to 4 cups of oats, soaked, twice a day for the group - 1 sow and 4 large juveniles (the lactating sow gets all-you-can eat feed for now).
I'm reading that if you eliminate all the apples that have bugs in them, the next year you can drop the number of bug bites up to 90%! So I'm hoping by feeding all the bitten apples to the pigs, next year's will be really nice. I don't
spray my trees.