Cheap Pig Food ideas.

I only have three little pigs, but I may go through a ton of corn and 400 lbs of soy bean meal by the time they are finished. I was wondering...

Is there a cheaper way to purchase these amounts then by the 50# bag?
Any alternatives?

As for corn I also have cows and chickens so I could use more if I needed to. At this time egg sales deffinitly keep me in feed.

get a gravity wagon and buy straight from a farmer or local grainery.
another note: check with your local grocery. alot of time you can get the day old bread and vegetables.
USDA note: Now you are not allowed to feed this to hogs for slaughter if you are going to resale.
I use to feed old vegetables and day old baked goods all of the time, doesn't help much with alot of weight gain, but helps to keep cost down.

smigelski":32urbevr said:

alot of time you can get the day old bread and vegetables.
USDA note: Now you are not allowed to feed this to hogs for slaughter

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Really? I never knew this... Do these products have to be "further processed" before going to feed? I thought I remembered companies who put together "pig feed" by purchasing cast offs from large bakers and such and combining it into a blended feed. How do they get around that rule?

Mike in La Crosse, WI

Locally there are a couple of mills that process animal feed. They also bulk deliver. Suggest talking to several in your area. The local farm supply store handles bag and bulk sales of animal feed.

Waste food. Guess it's been a while. Farmers used to contract with the US military for "slop" waste food.

WisconsinCubMan":oee2n2lg said:

smigelski":oee2n2lg said:

alot of time you can get the day old bread and vegetables.
USDA note: Now you are not allowed to feed this to hogs for slaughter

Click to expand...

Really? I never knew this... Do these products have to be "further processed" before going to feed? I thought I remembered companies who put together "pig feed" by purchasing cast offs from large bakers and such and combining it into a blended feed. How do they get around that rule?

Mike in La Crosse, WI

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you can feed scraps and leftovers (slop) to sows which are used for breeding. So they can be pregnant and actually eat true trash and that is OK. Once the piglet is born it has to be feed processed grain or organic approved feed. You figureout why they made that rule and let me know. I would imagine it has something to do with tree and bunny huggers. They seem to screw everything up.

I think the tree huggers would like the idea of recycling. More likely the rule was pushed by grain producers lobby (follow the money trail). I was thinking of trying some of the small brewerys here to see what they do with thier spent barly. I know the cows love it when I make beer and they get the leavings. The pigs are for family consumption, but I will keep that rule in mind. We were thinking of getting a few berkshire sows. The lady out here that sold weaners moved, and with food costs going up the little guys seem to sell fast. They get about $75 each here. If I can keep the food costs under a certain level they will actually make money. But with corn prices I dont think a feeder pig operation would do so well.

the main reason you are not allowed to feed the trash slop to feeders is because, they it is going directly into the meat which we will eat. With a sow it is going to her. I tend to disagree with that theory since if a pregnant woman drinks, the baby also gets the alcohol.

Im about to raise my first set of pigs here to. At the landfill I run we have a 3/4 acre garden we plant in Mustard, turnip, and rape. We plant this in the fall for a caover crop and border for sediment control. We have several thousand turnips baseball and soft ball sized with greens about a foot high. Ive been letting a friend come out there and load up a pickup bed load and feed his hogs. Im going to try this as well as a hog pen on wheels to feed them right out of one of my old clay gardens let them fertilize and work the soil to. My friend has part of a #10 JD feed grinder he had and I have one I saved from the junkyard. I need to cut my holes bigger and mount the motor or a pto shft to be able to mushem up a bit for the little pigs.

There is a large Hog operation just north of Las Vegas that feeds their entire operation from leftovers from the Las Vegas restaurants on the strip. They have a fleet of trucks that go pick up the food and bring it out to the farm.

Actually they get paid to pick it up. A brilliant recycling project.

OK Folks,

Here is the deal on feeding uncooked garbage to hogs. It is a parasite that can infect humans:

Is trichinellosis common in the United States?
Infection was once very common and usually caused by ingestion of undercooked pork. However, infection is now relatively rare. During 1997-2001, an average of 12 cases per year were reported. The number of cases has decreased because of legislation prohibiting the feeding of raw-meat garbage to hogs, commercial and home freezing of pork, and the public awareness of the danger of eating raw or undercooked pork products. Cases are less commonly associated with pork products and more often associated with eating raw or undercooked wild game meats.

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I'm sure that the operation north of Vegas has a large cooker to cook the garbage before it is fed to the hogs. As for sows not being in the human food chain --- ever heard of whole hog sausage, processed meats?

Now you know the rest of the story.

Bill

the place north of Vegas was on Dirty Jobs, was pretty cool to see, Yes he had a very larger cooker.


sows not for consumption, yeah I know it is not the truth, but that is what the law says. Remember the people who make the laws never see what actually happens or the result of their laws.
Tree and Bunny Huggers - well there is just no place for them in the real world

Bill:

Remind me if you make it to the possible CubFest up here in September. I will take you to see neighbours of ours. The Derosches have been raising sows and market pigs for about 60 years or so. In the last 20 years Ronnie and his brother Leonard have been involved in a new feed business. Much of it is derived from the local commercial bakeries. They reprocess bulk baked goods into livestock feed and transport it all over New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI from my understanding. How they do it is interesting. Seems the processing is just a means to an end as they get paid to pick it up, and paid to deliver it. So that is where the money is, is in the transport. The processing is a side industry. They themselves used to raise the sows (breeder farm) in behind us, and their production facility was over New Canaan way. Now the old breeder farm has been rebuilt into the processing facility -- they have designed and built all of the equipment and it is quite the operation. Their production farm is still up in New Canaan and they have over 15,000 hogs at any given time.

Quite the outfit. I think you would be interested in seeing it. The only concern I would have is the amount of starches (turnips have starch as do potatoes) and the amount of preservatives etc., in the baked goods.

Also, I used to think that hogs were primarily omnivores but that vegetables etc., were their primary diet. Turnips, potato's and other vegetables would be fed to them regularly as part of their feed. Em's grand father used to raise pigs and they would get leavings from the table as well as veggies that were starting to turn.

I am not sure what the best feed would be, but I am curious. Em and I are thinkiing that we just may start raising animals again. Small scale, a meat kings, some RIR's, a turkey or two and maybe a couple piglets to start. It was enjoyable when we did and have been thinking with the price of meat these days, it might be an option for us to mitigate expenses. Cost is not really the main concern, but raising our own fowl etc., we knew what we were getting and none of the stuff the commercial producers feed and there was less fat on them.

smigelski":u9z29kpu said:

get a gravity wagon and buy straight from a farmer or local grainery.
another note: check with your local grocery. alot of time you can get the day old bread and vegetables.
USDA note: Now you are not allowed to feed this to hogs for slaughter if you are going to resale.
I use to feed old vegetables and day old baked goods all of the time, doesn't help much with alot of weight gain, but helps to keep cost down.

Click to expand...

i agree with smigelski, buy a ton of ear corn from a local ,and around here we have a fellow with a mobile grain mill. that way you can customize your feed the way you like.when i would have over three head that would be my way of feeding. you can go to the micro brewery and buy the brewers grain pretty cheap,actually sometimes free. i would go to tsc and buy anything they had ripped for half price. once you gathered what you want to mix they would throw everything in the hopper and you have to have plenty of grain bags around or a grain bin and your set.i have a hammer mill i want to start using but recently when i looked at it i saw that at he bottom of the blower i have some rusting out so when i can get to it i'll have to do some fabricating.i keep three 55 gallon drums with lids in the barn that i feed out of which hold roughly three hundred lbs. per drum.understand that if your not on a regular baiting program your going to be seeing vermin so it's really important how you store your feed. i have a real problem with rats they give me the willys. :idea:

Shelled corn is the best and cheapest all around food for hogs but corn alone will not make the best gain per pound. I have found 1500 lbs corn 200 lbs soy-bean meal , 200 wheat way and 25 lbs minerals to be the best for piglets to 180 lb shouts ,
cut back 100 lbs each on the meal and way for 180 lb up hogs. The local mill will grind for a small fee.
Of course we feed all the kitchen slop and garden wast as well as letting them graze too
David

Thank you for the information.
The only local mill that would sell by the ton (without bags) burned down, so I will probably have to drive to St.Paul with a trailer and pick up the goods.
If I was to properly store this how long will it last?

uncle mike three words....keep it dry.

about 4 months or so you really need to push them to start with so they dont get stunted you can figure on about 5 lbs a hog a day