Dale Hodgins wrote:I'm sure we will try several types of pig. These large black ones are well adapted to the climate and they are good foragers. It's important that at least some of our pigs, not only root for their food, but also consume browse from trees and shrubs. We may want to use them to clean up ground cover in the edge zone between silvopasture and field crop zones. On hot days, which is almost every day, I would like to allow them to retreat to dense stands of giant lucina and neem. Some testing will be needed, to see if they decide to debark those trees. We can't have that. If they are bent on destruction, we will put chain link around maybe one acre of trees, so they can have a shade run. If they are well-behaved, I'd like to run them in many areas.
They will never be allowed to just roam the entire farm. I intend to grow several things that they are bound to destroy. I hope to make moringa leaf a big part of our income. The bark is tender, nutritious and tasty. Just about everyone throws moringa to their pigs, branches and all, and they completely debark it.
When managed for leaf, these trees are cut to within 3 feet of the ground, at least twice a year. The soft wood rots very quickly and does not make good charcoal or firewood. It is worthless as a building wood. So, I expect to throw all of our tops to the pigs, so they can eat it and then stomp all over it. It will then be mixed with manure for composting.
Hi Dale, I also live in the tropics (Morong, Bataan, Phililippines). We have a 3.2 hectare farm (
http://MountainAir.farm). We have Large Black Pigs like the ones you pictured... one boar about 5ths old and 6 gilts about 8 months old... they will be breeding soon... there is a group for these LBP (
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2396155430651969/). We are also planning to feed our pigs organically with the main staples of Moringa/Malunggay, Mulberry and Madre de Aqua. Also banana stalks and more. We now have over 7000 Moringa/Malunggay seedlings and hope to have a total of 30,000 before rainy season ends. These Moringa/Malunggay will be grown in hedges 2 meters wide, 0.4 meters on center (5 plants per width). We plan to harvest the Moringa/Malunggay like tea leaves. Some will be fed directly to pigs and some turned into pellets for other livestock.
Most of what we are doing/planning is similar to your 30 year plan. One exception is that we have piggeries and bring the food to the pigs.
We have had our farm going on 3 years... running a farm here is akin to herding cats... Workers here tend to not be loyal, don't care, wanna do things their way and don't work well unless someone is watching. We now have 5 permanent workers and 2 seasonal. One worker we have had from the beginning and slowly have added the others... but we went through a LOT of workers getting to those 5.
We have found it best to not push and just go one day at a time... so things don't get stressed. Sometimes it seems like no progress is being made, but then when we walk around we can see our dreams coming true.
Everyone will tell you that growing Moringa/Malunggay is easy, but if you want more than a few trees... it is not. At least not intuitive like sticking a few seeds in the ground. (yep, I did that... with ZERO results). We now have soldiered on and have a strategy that seems to be working.
Well, I am new here... hope to hear more about your progress. I found this thread today because I am looking for a tropical "high energy"(starch) pig feed replacement for corn.
You can read a little more about my dreams here...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/CFTWI/
RonnyInBataan
https://www.facebook.com/ronny.mauldin51
