# pigs and eggs??



## switchman62 (Oct 19, 2007)

Can you feed too many eggs to feeder pigs? We have an abundance of eggs at this time and with all the wet weather and mud alot of them are dirty. I could be giving each pig about 12 eggs a day but I don't know if that can cause problems, to much protein, etc?? The pigs right now are at about 110 to 140 lbs each and they do like their eggs

Thanks in advance for the answers.

Dave


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

Yes, eggs are great food for pigs. I've never had enough, even with over 100 hens, to find out what "too much" is.  We primarily feed them to our weaners and growers. Eggs are high in protein and you get double the available protein if you cook the eggs. I toss them into water I've heated for other purposes and feed the eggs shells and all.

So what might be too much? Well, if you give a pig too much protein they can "burn out" (organ failure). I suspect it would take a lot of eggs to burn out a 140 lb pig.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egg_(food)

Cheers

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
Pastured Pigs, Sheep & Kids
in the mountains of Vermont
Read about our on-farm butcher shop project:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/butchershop
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/csa


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## HeritagePigs (Aug 11, 2009)

Eggs are about 12% protein which is just about right for the ratio of protein in a pig's food. But they aren't a complete food; pigs also require fiber, carbs and minerals which eggs don't have in adequate amounts.

12 large eggs is about 1.5 pounds which is about 25 percent of a daily diet by weight. That sounds about right; I wouldn't feed more than 25%. 

(My calculations are based on an average feeder diet for a 100 lb pig. If your pig is 200 lbs, you can feed 24 eggs per day. Adjust this based on weight of the pig.)

brian
Large Black and Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs
HomegrownAcres.com


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

_"The true ileal digestibility of cooked and raw egg protein amounted to 90.9 Â± 0.8 and 51.3 Â± 9.8%, respectively."_
http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/128/10/1716

This means that eggs are almost all protein, when cooked, not 12% and thus too high as a sole diet for the pigs. Fed with something else to lower the protein levels they work great.


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## HeritagePigs (Aug 11, 2009)

I think you might be misunderstanding what you are reading there, Walter. The 90.9 and 51.3 are percentages of digestibility. Now I'm no chemist or food scientist, but the way I understand the article you referenced, they were studying the digestibility of egg protein; not the percentage of protein in an egg. They fed cooked and raw egg protein to people in the study. When they tested it after ingestion they found that 90.9% of cooked egg protein had been digested versus 51.3% of the raw egg protein.

One large egg contains six grams of protein (click here for my reference). Since the average large egg is 50 grams, the protein represents 12% of it. Your study says that, if you cook that egg, then 90.9% of the 6 grams of protein would be digested. If you feed it raw, 51.3% of the six grams of protein would be digested. What the study might suggest is that you can feed more raw eggs than cooked eggs to a pig. Of course, your study didn't study pigs, it studied humans. 

brian
Large Black and Gloucestershire Old Spot pigs
HomegrownAcres.com


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## 1Travelingon (May 1, 2005)

I read here years ago to never feed pigs unshelled eggs as the shell has killed more than one pig-if I remember correctly it punctured an intestine?


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## Patty0315 (Feb 1, 2004)

I have fed raw eggs to pigs for years shells and all and no dead pigs. Cosidering in natures pigs will eat anything including bones , I dont think egg shells will harm them.

Patty


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

They are wonderful food for pigs, give them what they want. Thanks Marc


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## jerryk (Mar 30, 2010)

highlands said:


> _"The true ileal digestibility of cooked and raw egg protein amounted to 90.9 Â± 0.8 and 51.3 Â± 9.8%, respectively."_
> http://jn.nutrition.org/cgi/content/full/128/10/1716
> 
> This means that eggs are almost all protein, when cooked, not 12% and thus too high as a sole diet for the pigs. Fed with something else to lower the protein levels they work great.



Let me see if I got this straight. You want $150 to $250 for a piglet. Have over 3000 posts on this sight. Advise someone else with wrong advice. Attempt to substantiate that advice with personal experience (an obvious lie). To top it off, argue that eggs, yet alone any food product has 90% protein? Unbelievable. 

"An idiot is difficult to deal with. An idiot who does not know he is an idiot is impossible to deal with" Thomas Jefferson


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## Cheryl aka JM (Aug 7, 2007)

Wow~ one post and this is it? Perhaps you know Highlands and have a personal agenda that has nothing to do with pigs?


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

Brian, you are correct, I miss-worded that confusing the grams and digestibility. Cooking the eggs almost doubles the available protein. Thank you for the correction of that.

Andreozzi, I've read that before about some people saying don't feed shells but never had a problem with it. Perhaps because we've never had so many eggs that it was enough of an issue in their diet. Now I just give them the whole thing. The shells dissolve in acids quite readily, such as what is in the stomach.

Jerry, you're rude. I think you may be jealous too on the price. But think about it: it takes five months to produce a piglet. In a mere five more months I can sell the meat for $630. Why would I ever sell the piglets for less? Also, I see this is your very first post. Did you register just so that you could make that nasty comment? Perhaps you are someone else who wants to hide their identity?

Anyone else, here's a funny while we're on the topic of Pig Eggs: http://sugarmtnfarm.com/blog/2010/04/pig-eggs.html


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## jerryk (Mar 30, 2010)

highlands said:


> Jerry, you're rude. I think you may be jealous too on the price. But think about it: it takes five months to produce a piglet. In a mere five more months I can sell the meat for $630. Why would I ever sell the piglets for less? Also, I see this is your very first post. Did you register just so that you could make that nasty comment? Perhaps you are someone else who wants to hide their identity?


Rude? Rude is handing out what could be harmful and incorrect information. Rude is making real farmers look like idiots while you are pretending to be a farmer. Rude is offering advice to others attempting to raise pigs with bogus info you gathered with a simple Google search, all the while substantiating your bogus claims with lies of personal experience. Rude is asking such an outrageous price for piglets (which I am sure you have sold none) while claiming you know what you are doing. 

Rude is pretending to be a farmer on the internet. In scanning your other posts it is clear you have no clue. Much like this post, they are full of incorrect information. Instead of posting on this forum pretending to be in the know, open a book or go to school regarding farming. By stating that any food product contains 90% protein it shows you have absolutely no education or knowledge in any matter of farming.

Stop making us real farmers look like idiots. You are in no way any type of farmer or a farm owner. Just a lazy wanna-be. Stop insulting us real hog farmers. 

I sincerly hope that anyone looking to purchase a piglet or feeder from you does a Google search first. Anyone with an ounce of education would never buy from someone so clueless as to think a food substance contains 90% protein.

Learn what you are doing or get out of the business. Stop pretending.


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