![]() While weeds and grass add some variety and calories, intentionally planted forage can elevate pigs’ weight and mood. If you exert the effort to pasture pigs, it makes sense to ensure your animals get as much from your land as it can provide. We spend important time with our pigs every day, our growth rates are spot on and we waste a lot less feed. After we tried ground feeding, we never went back. In the past, we tried various commercial and homemade feeders, and we saw every one of them wrecked and dragged around the pasture by playful pigs. On our farm, we feed twice daily, weighing enough feed for each pig to have a total of 6 to 7 pounds per day. Establish feeding times-either twice a day, or at breakfast, lunch and dinner-and simply pour the feed out in a line on a dry piece of earth. While I’m all for time-saving tips, in this case I recommend a little extra chore time to minimize waste and keep your pigs healthy. Unfortunately, bugs, rodents and rainwater often sneak in, spoiling rations and requiring laborious and expensive dumping. Leafy hay also contains more protein than lower-quality varieties, so choose bales with legumes mixed in to boost growth rates.įeeder systems conveniently offer farmers the option to fill and forget, as pigs can feed on demand with minimal refills. If you’re inclined to feed hay to your herd, incorporate it at the feeder-pig stage your animals will probably hesitate to try it, so encourage consumption by tossing some corn or feed in or pouring molasses on top. While hay does contain fewer calories than hog feed, it makes an excellent supplement, and the meat from hay-fed pigs tastes better and contains higher concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids. ![]() That’s pastured pork, strictly speaking.īut pigs will also eat dried grass, or hay, when the weather turns cold and grass goes dormant. So here I present a few tips we learned the hard way. Yet we learned during the process to make feeding our hogs easier. On my farm, our family did everything wrong at least once. ![]() Getting food into your hogs’ bellies can be a challenge, even with the animals’ piggish appetites. Chief among these skills? How you feed your pigs. While it’s true that a herd of pigs doesn’t require the same protection and watchful eye that it takes to keep predators away from, say, a flock of chickens, hogs do rely on their farmer-keepers for a somewhat specialized skill set. Pigs are known for being low-maintenance livestock.
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