# Sunflowers in Hog Pasture



## wildfrogs1 (Jan 25, 2011)

Would Sunflowers be a good crop for Hog to Graze.

Yield ?

Protein % ?

Thanks in advance


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

We grow sunflowers and feed them to the pigs by turning them into the sunflowers in the fall. Pumpkins, turnips, beets, squash and other things. A few acres. I have yet to actually plant enough. My goal is to have enough that they would have food from the plantings all winter. Mid winter is the longest it has lasted.

I find it very well worth doing the planting. We do it by hand into the animal's winter paddocks, compost piles, etc.

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
ButcherShop | Sugar Mountain Farm


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## olivehill (Aug 17, 2009)

Definitely. But as Walter pointed out, you won't want to turn them out there until fall. Otherwise you'll never get any actual sunflowers... and the seeds are the best part.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Glad you posted this. I planted a few giant sunflowers last year and ended up with about a gallon of seed. I am planting it now. Pigs are, well, pigs so I am planting them away from where the pasture will be. I'm thinking that if I just turned the pigs into the sunflowers that they will just savage the sunflowers (I'm also planting squash and pumpkin) and ignore everything else. I think that a better option is to plant it in another area, allow it to mature, and then ration it to hogs on ordinary pasture.

Unless you have a large herd of hogs it would be pretty easy to hand harvest the sunflowers and squash and just feed them so much per day along with their pasture or grain.


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## InvalidID (Feb 18, 2011)

Protein on sunflowers is somewhere around 20%. I don't know if hogs will eat the stalks as well as the heads but I do know that counting the stalk sunflowers rank slightly higher than corn as a feed. That's if you feed corn silage as well as the corn itself.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

They eat the leaves. Our bigger hogs (>300 lbs) do eat stalks of even the 12' sunflowers but that is less appetitive. Heads are favorite.

Cheers,

-Walter Jeffries
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
ButcherShop | Sugar Mountain Farm


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## happydog (May 7, 2008)

Walter, how do you hand plant a few acres? I've got about 4 acres of pasture but they're already full of grasses, etc.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

Basically, the old fashion way:

Big seeds: poke holes, put seed in the ground, cover. 

Small seeds: broadcast using frost, mob and rain.

Mostly we do hand work as it is only a few acres (70 of fields and maybe 4 of crops) and we live on the side of the mountain - machine work is difficult to impossible due to steep slopes and shallow soils. I have terraced a lot but there is a lot that is still steep.

See:

Last 48 Hours of Kickstarter&#8230; Upgrades and Adjustments | Sugar Mountain Farm

and

A Beautiful Warm Spring | Sugar Mountain Farm

and

Frost Seeding | Sugar Mountain Farm

Cheers,

-Walter


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## wildfrogs1 (Jan 25, 2011)

Thanks for the Help.

We where going to plant 1 acre of sunflowers in a five acre pasture that we already have 4 acres of corn growing in. The plan is to pick the corn and then turn the hogs on to the 5 acres of missed corn and 1 acre of sunflowers.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

wildfrogs1 said:


> Thanks for the Help.
> 
> We where going to plant 1 acre of sunflowers in a five acre pasture that we already have 4 acres of corn growing in. The plan is to pick the corn and then turn the hogs on to the 5 acres of missed corn and 1 acre of sunflowers.


Could be a good plan depending on several factors.

1. how many hogs?

2. How long?

3. How much of the gain are you relying on with this scheme?

Are you thinking of turning out 40 lb feeders and expecting them to finish on this ration, or are you thinking more of turning 150lb hogs out? You really don't give enough information for anyone to access the feasibility of this plan.


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## wildfrogs1 (Jan 25, 2011)

10 sows with 2wk old pigs.

30 Days 

We are trying for 100 bu of corn per acre on the 4 acres. We exspect the machine picker will leave about 10 bu per acre 

There should be a lot of green crab grass and weeds as well that grows after the corn dies.

After 30 days we will move them to next 5 acres.

Thanks for the help


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