making pig feed on a homestead

wanting to make my own pig feed for my sow and boar and piglets when they arrive I was wondering if any of you have experience making feed if so please respond

Lots of others have actual experience when it comes to this, but from my understanding they will eat just about the same things we will and then some.

Here is a small list of things I have seen others list:

sunchokes
food scraps
extra dairy
squash
fruit drops
nuts

what sort of pigs do you have ?
our kune-kunes live on grass and things they can forage (nuts...).
They like fresh nettle, so I cut down any old nettle bushes to make new fresh looking shoots...
They also love comfrey, so I'm planning on planting some somewhere (I have 2 fields for the pigs, so that the land has a rest)

Apart from that we give them a lot of vegetables (potato peels, banana skins, gone off veg, left-over milk, apples from last autumn going bad...), as long as it is not too bad looking and did not get meat (some countries, including the US as far as I know, do not allow food that entered the house to be given to a pig, even if it's a 100%vegetarian/ meat free house...)

And this year, since we have enough space for it, we are going to grow pumpkins/squashes and a special beetroot which is good for them. I think that whatever pig you have, this would be great for them, and it stores well so that you have some food to give them in the winter months.

No I have Berkshires sow and boar that im wanting feed

We have Berkshire, Yorkshire, Large Black and Tamworths as well as our cross lines. Their diet consists mostly (>80%) of pasture. In the winter the pasture is canned, that is to say hay. We supplement with whey. If I didn't have the dairy I would keep a lot more chickens for the eggs for the pigs. Other things as available varying seasonally are pumpkins, sunflowers, sunchokes, squash, broccoli, apples, pears, etc as well as about 2% spent barley in their diet and occasional treat of dated bread. Use the resources you have.

-Walter

Alex Tourehote wrote:and did not get meat (some countries, including the US as far as I know, do not allow food that entered the house to be given to a pig, even if it's a 100%vegetarian/ meat free house...)

Fortunately this only really applies to production-for-sale. There might be technical 'laws' against it for home-use, but I can tell you my pigs would certainly hold a protest. The only meat scraps they don't get is ones made out of pork [and they'd be happy to have them if given. [I just find the technical cannibalism a little creepy, even though wild pigs actually do eat just about any carcass they find.]

Hi Kyrt,

that's good news ! since the pigs broke into our chicken-run compost system I could not think of where to put the left over meat...
I'm going off topic, but what about pig's poo ? can it go straight into the veg garden ? Whenever I collected some, I've always put it with our dry toilet compost....

So far as I've noticed it's not super high in nitrogen [but typically higher than sheep/goat/rabbit manure, depending on feed] but you do need to be careful with pig manure because of parasites.

I imagine it's fine for elevated crops like corn or trellised vines, but I wouldn't directly apply it to garden space being used for low-growing leafy greens or bush beans or bush tomatoes or anything like that.

Kyrt Ryder wrote:So far as I've noticed it's not super high in nitrogen [but typically higher than sheep/goat/rabbit manure, depending on feed] but you do need to be careful with pig manure because of parasites.

If you have parasite problems then you need to be dealing with them long before. Pig manure should have no more parasites than other manures. Use good raising practices and managed rotational grazing to start with.

-Walter

Thanks Walter. The parasite portion of my post was junk I'd picked up from 'conventional wisdom.' The correction is much appreciated.

As a brief note though... I wasn't assuming pig manure had more parasites, but rather that the parasites in pig manure were more compatible with people.

Kyrt Ryder wrote:Thanks Walter. The parasite portion of my post was junk I'd picked up from 'conventional wisdom.' The correction is much appreciated. As a brief note though... I wasn't assuming pig manure had more parasites, but rather that the parasites in pig manure were more compatible with people.

Hmm... I've heard that argument but the problem is more complex than just parasites. I wouldn't suggest eating cow manure (E. Coli) or chicken manure (Salmonella) just to name two issues. A best practices is to compost the manure. Even humanure can be composted quite nicely. If applying directly (e.g., winter paddocks) then consider either growing high above ground crops (e.g., sunflowers, corn) the first year or at least cooking your food. The latter is a fairly good solution to killing undesirables. Another alternative is to just throw cares to the wind and evolve but that takes longer...

Cheers,

-Walter

To get back to feed does anyone make there own sow (lactating) feed look all over no 1 around here makes there own ideas