Fattening on eggs and goats milk, what else?

[rittert3]

If I were to try to fatten a couple hog on eggs and goats milk how much of each should they be fed per head per day and what else and how much would they need in order to be healthy?

 

[jhm47]

There's not a lot of dry matter in eggs and goat's milk, so you'd have to feed a LOT of it. I'd also self-feed a good commercial hog ration, and let them eat as much milk and eggs as they want. They will eat what's necessary and pretty well regulate their diets by themselves.

 

[freemotion]

Are you planning on containing them in a pen or putting them on pasture? I'm a big fan of variety in the diet. You can soak grains in that milk and sour it for a bit and they'll really like it. Plenty of fresh veggies/grass/clover will round out their diet. If you can get your hands on restaurant prep scraps and bread that is past the sell-by date you could have free bacon. Cook those eggs, though. I also add pumpkins and ears of corn unhusked in the fall when the farm next door is selling fall decorating stuff (they sell corn stalks and strip the ears off so racoons don't mess up their displays at night...they throw them on the field and I pick them up.) I put an ad on craigslist and picked up acorns that people had raked up in the suburbs here. Acorn-finished pork is a rare and expensive delicacy and we pigged out on it. For almost no investment.

Lots of details as to how I fed my hogs on my pig journal last year and this year on the sister site, sufficientself, and ohiofarmgirl has links to her blog in all her posts and she details how she fattens up her bacon on that blog.

 

[rittert3]

Wanted to stay away from commercial mix and they will be pen fed. I can give them some prep waste from my own kitchen and spit/over ripe vegtables and plants in the fall from my own garden as well as some baged grain.
Are tomatoes ok, or to acidic and plants to grisley? I only plan on feeding out 2 or 3 head a year so quanities should stay reasonable. Also if I'm reading right the freash raw eggs are not ok to feed? is that right freemotion? What about losses in my layer flock? I've heard of hogs eating fresh killed jack rabbits. I basically want them to be as much of a waste disposal as possible giving me cheap pork as a result and I am willing to give them up to 2 lbs a day of cracked corn to round it out it that will work.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

Also if I'm reading right the freash raw eggs are not ok to feed?

YES thats right - do not feed raw eggs. sure they will eat them - but they have a protein inhibitor so you'd just be working against yourself.

i'm feeding our two hogs on corn, goat milk, eggs, and they are on pasture. they are doing GREAT - actually well ahead of schedule. if you want to stay away from bagged feed (and JHM is just right - you can do just fine on hog ration) then you can add protein with some calf manna to their grain/corn/wheat/whatever. using alternative feed like Free and i do produce a great table hog - it might take a little longer than just bagged food, but we think the results are spectacular.

we feed a ton of garden stuff, pumpkins are great - they are also a natural wormer, fruit, weeds, hay etc. and yep you can give them table scraps - i'm about to walks some stuff down from doing some kitchen prep right now.

if the pigs are pasture they'll do a great job of rooting and clear cutting - right now ours are getting rid of a big patch of poison ivy (no it doesnt hurt them). we also made friends with people who have farm stands and they give us a ton of stuff for the pigs. basically pigs will eat anything they can smell - and as long as they are growing at a consistent rate then you're good. the only thing we dont feed our pigs is processed foods - but we dont each much of that ourselves so we dont have it to give.

many people will advise you NOT to feed meat. of course thats totally up to you - if the pigs figure out that chickens taste like.. well... chicken they might start going after them if the hens get into their pen. another reason not to feed meat is that pigs might figure out you are made out of meat..and then... well. its all down hill from there. but everyone has a different view on that.
here's what i know about feeding pigs out on the cheap . we've had great success with how we raise hogs for our table.

good luck!

 

[freemotion]

Unless you grow ALL your own food for a large family, you will not likely have enough scraps from your garden to grow out 2-3 hogs. It will help, but not enough. You can, however, feed them for free or nearly so if you are creative, put the word out, and make it a habit to go collect stuff from other sources.

Easier to buy hog pellets? Sure. But it is even easier to just go to the grocery store and buy pork on foam trays wrapped in plastic....most of us who go through the trouble do so because we want something we can't get in the store....good, healthy meat raised without antibiotics and cruelty. I totally agree with you.

Talk to any area restaurants, grocery stores (they have liability issues so are tough to get stuff from now), bakeries, wholesale distributors, dairies, local gardeners, landscapers (acorns), local farmstand-type farmers, etc. Put ads on your local craigslist in the farm&garden section. Be faithful about picking stuff up once you've obligated yourself, and show lots of appreciation.

Last year a craigslist appeal for acorns netted about 3/4 - 1 ton of acorns, and about 4-500 lbs were delivered and dumped in my field by a landscaper! I just piled them up and let the pigs eat free-choice, so storage and mold were not an issue. There were enough leftovers this spring to start this year's pigs, so you'd better believe that my goal is 2-3 tons this fall since we doubled the number of pigs we raise from 2 to 4.

This year I got 48 boxes of prepper canned goods, each box containing six LARGE cans of food, mostly powdered milk. I also got 55 pails of organic wheat, each with 45 lbs of premium wheat for grinding into flour. All for free.

I just found a wholesale distributor of bread that lets me come fill my car for free. Got about 250 lbs last Tuesday and hope to get even more this coming Tuesday.

My goats got into my tomato garden last summer and destroyed my crop. I dumped 18 five gallon pails of broken tomatoes into the pig pasture. They ignored them until they liquified, then they snarfed them down. The farmer next door dumped buckets of tomatoes and he and I literally dumped tons of pumpkins and squashes over the fence. They immediately ate the seeds, then waited for the rest of the veggies to liquify before eating them.

We have a bagging mower and so does our neighbor. All chemical-free clippings are used....he parks his wheelbarrow on our driveway and I return it when empty. If I am not mulching my gardens with it, I am feeding it to the pigs and chicks. Clippings should be fed fresh, though. When their pasture is depleted, I scythe grass/clover for them daily.

A local restaurant calls us after banquets about once a week with boxes and pails of leftover salad, peelings, salmon, rolls, cakes, sauces and soups. Pig heaven!

The guy I got my weaners from last year raises his breeding hogs on bread from an organic bakery and milk from an organic dairy, along with rotated pasture, acorns, other stuff.

Yes, cook those eggs. I just throw poopy eggs in a pot and boil them, cool them, and toss them to the pigs shell and all.

I think I gave you a few ideas to start with!

 

[Ms. Research]

Also if I'm reading right the freash raw eggs are not ok to feed?

YES thats right - do not feed raw eggs. sure they will eat them - but they have a protein inhibitor so you'd just be working against yourself.

i'm feeding our two hogs on corn, goat milk, eggs, and they are on pasture. they are doing GREAT - actually well ahead of schedule. if you want to stay away from bagged feed (and JHM is just right - you can do just fine on hog ration) then you can add protein with some calf manna to their grain/corn/wheat/whatever. using alternative feed like Free and i do produce a great table hog - it might take a little longer than just bagged food, but we think the results are spectacular.

we feed a ton of garden stuff, pumpkins are great - they are also a natural wormer, fruit, weeds, hay etc. and yep you can give them table scraps - i'm about to walks some stuff down from doing some kitchen prep right now.

if the pigs are pasture they'll do a great job of rooting and clear cutting - right now ours are getting rid of a big patch of poison ivy (no it doesnt hurt them). we also made friends with people who have farm stands and they give us a ton of stuff for the pigs. basically pigs will eat anything they can smell - and as long as they are growing at a consistent rate then you're good. the only thing we dont feed our pigs is processed foods - but we dont each much of that ourselves so we dont have it to give.

many people will advise you NOT to feed meat. of course thats totally up to you - if the pigs figure out that chickens taste like.. well... chicken they might start going after them if the hens get into their pen. another reason not to feed meat is that pigs might figure out you are made out of meat..and then... well. its all down hill from there. but everyone has a different view on that.
here's what i know about feeding pigs out on the cheap . we've had great success with how we raise hogs for our table.

good luck!

Sorry, I couldn't watch the video. But seriously I do know the real deal and as a NON-vegetarian, love good pork. Thanks to good people like you, the pigs are given a good life with respect in exchange for our sustenance. I truly respect and admire what you do.

Thanks for explaining it the Real way.

 

[freemotion]

Once when I was a kid someone gave my dad a rabbit they'd hunted. For some reason he didn't want it...didn't trust it. So he tossed it, whole and fresh and undressed, into the pig pen. He says it never hit the ground!

I give my pigs cooked meat scraps (not many), especially salmon from the restaurant, and leftover rendered fat that we aren't using. I save all fat so after a while I have to clean out the fridge of the older jars, and the pigs get a bit a week. They eat it like candy.

I think if you feed cooked meat they won't necessarily smell your raw meat legs and try to eat them. That being said, I don't go in their pen. Got a scratch while in their pasture last year that bled and the reaction of my two young pigs put some respectful fear into me. If fencing needs fixing, we feed them LOTS and LOTS of the best food and fat and then the big guys go in and fix fencing. While the stuffed pigs are napping.

 

[freemotion]

Sorry, I couldn't watch the video.

Give it another try, it was an article, not a video.

 

[Ms. Research]

Sorry, I couldn't watch the video.

Give it another try, it was an article, not a video.

Thanks for the suggestion. And I'm truly glad I read that informative and very entertaining article about pigs. Learn something new every day!