# Cattle and pigs- together- question



## lunagardens (Jul 17, 2005)

I just began reading "Keeping a family milk cow" by Joann Sills Grohman. She mentions on pg 11-12


> "pigs can graze with cows if the fence is adequate. A low electric wire will do the job. Pigs in these circumstances are not expected to derive all their diet from cow dung- they are still fed- but insure that the cow doesn't waste anything. Such a pig is infinitely better fed than those fed municipal or cafeteria waste. in cold weather, moving and working the manure pile helps keep a pig warm."


Are their any members here that practice the above? I am VERY new to cows and trying to learn as much as I can before we acquire one in the future. I have never driven by and seen cows grazing with pigs, so this seemed a bit odd. Is it healthy for the 2 animals? Would they get along? How does it work for you? I have more questions but guess the above is a start.
So anyone let their pigs out with the cows?
~Tammie


----------



## dcross (Aug 12, 2005)

My parents neighbor always kept one in with his older heifers(breeding age to springers) because he felt the heifers would be de-sensitized to something touching their legs, making them calmer when he had to milk them.

You don't want pigs around them when they calve.


----------



## matt_man (Feb 11, 2006)

I would not recommend this. Some younger piglets had gotten in the pasture with our cows and they were nursing on one of our heifers. She ended up with terrible mastitis and we were never able to make her dry off, even with not milking her. She was 3 yr. old, never been bred (yes it was confirmed). We eventually just got her a calf at the sale barn because she just kept bagging up more and more and the mastitis was lingering. She is fine now, raising her calf, and hopefully recently bred. I will only find out when she freshens after calving if there has been any permanent damage. Because it was the pigs that started her lactating, she udder had developed uneven, and I am hoping that at freshening it will be normal.

Rachel


----------



## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

I have a jersey bull calf running with a gilt; she never eats calf poop, though. They sleep together and hang out together, and when there were two calves here, they made a porkchop sandwich every night when they went to bed at night! HOWEVER, one of the posters from NZ mentioned that pigs can spread a strain of lepto to cattle. My experience has been fine, but they're both going to slaughter in a month.


----------



## lunagardens (Jul 17, 2005)

Thank you for the replies. I thought it was a bit odd, but I have no experience in the matter. I know that running other animals together can be unhealthy, which alerted me when i read the above mentioned in my question. Being one eats pretty much anything where the other eats a non carnivore diet.
Thanks again for clearing that up for me.
~Tammie


----------



## Mark T (Jan 7, 2003)

I run pigs behind my cows and sheep.

Pastures have a three day set up. Cows first for one day, sheep second (supposedly to cleam up broom sedge but it hasn't worked), then pigs. I wouldn't have done this with last year's pigs - they were rooting machines and would have destroyed good pasture. This year's pigs are lazy buggers and don't do more than a token nosing before hitting the grain.

I wouldn't put them all together - I too have heard of pigs suckling cows - they are smart animals.


----------



## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Works fine. One warning though, don't run pigs with cows or heifers that are due to calve. If the calf is slow in coming the pigs may eat it before it comes out.


----------



## Oxankle (Jun 20, 2003)

The old practice of running hogs with cattle was current when farmers fed cattle whole or chopped corn or other grains. The pigs would clean up whatever grain the cattle did not digest. There is no incentive for a pig to root through manure from a pastured animal. 

We were warned in those days not to run pigs behind heifers about to calve, and that pigs would sometimes lacerate the vulvas on heifers coming into heat. 

When I was a boy an uncle always raised a truckload of pigs each year, but he had a separate hog pasture for them. Fed them corn or milo grown on the farm, added shorts in water daily and tossed in any trash fish (big gar mostly) that he caught in his nets. Hogs had to share the fish with his chickens.
Ox


----------

