# What NOT to feed?



## markcrain (Oct 21, 2010)

I have a duroc gilt that was born March 1st. I found a restaurant that offered their waste food. Besides raw meat is there anything I should ask them not to include?


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

If raising to eat soon, no broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc. And not a lot of foods with high oil content. Makes soft loose fat. If raising to breed, a good ballance of food types, even milk products....James


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

markcrain said:


> I have a duroc gilt that was born March 1st. I found a restaurant that offered their waste food. Besides raw meat is there anything I should ask them not to include?


At 7 mos. old your gilt should weigh around 200 lbs. What are you going to use this gilt for? Breeding, butcher ? She can eat just about anything the restaurant has in the way of veg. Pigs love slop more than any comm. food.


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## cooper101 (Sep 13, 2010)

You should avoid anything that had been on a person's plate. Only get scraps from the kitchen. They generally don't like potatoes, onions, or citrus. You'll be better able to tell what they don't like after the first couple batches. After that, you can give the restaurant a better list of what to avoid. You don't want a bunch of stuff piling up rotting in the pen. Think about it terms of human nutrition. A big bucket of used fry oil or tubs full of french fries will do as much good for your pig as it will for you or me. If they can give you some vegetables, maybe some fruit, a little bread, cheese/dairy, it's a good supplement, but unless it's a pretty balanced diet, I wouldn't depend only on scraps.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

jwal10 said:


> If raising to eat soon, no broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, etc. And not a lot of foods with high oil content. Makes soft loose fat. If raising to breed, a good ballance of food types, even milk products....James


Not true. We grow about 70 acres of kale, rape, turnips, beets, cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli which is a significant part of our pigs's pasture diet. They tend to eat the leaves off of these plants first, then the stalks, then the tubers last, typically late in the fall and winter when the other forages are gone. Lots of grasses, alfalfa and clover in the fields as well. In addition to the pasture/hay we free feed dairy (mostly whey). It makes for delicious pork.


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

Feed it anything, raw meat included. Pigs eat anything. Absolutely anything.

I suppose if you are worried about diseases you could only feed it things you cook yourself, but , it's a pig. It will eat anything if it is hungry.


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## Zilli (Apr 1, 2012)

The first pigs I raised for meat took place during the time that my two oldest sons were dishwashers in Chinese restaurants. They would bring home buckets of Chinese food (they did try to weed out as much of the meat stuff as possible).

The pigs did get commercial feed, too, but the Chinese food was a huge part of their diet.

I'm sorry to say that the pork came out very fatty.

From then on out, all future pigs were raised on a more balanced, commercial feed-based diet - with tablescraps from my own kitchen (they loved things like peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and leftover blueberry pancakes) - and milk when I could get it from others or if I happened to be milking goats at that time.

The end results were much better when we cut out the Chinese food.

Saw this last night:

70-year-old Oregon farmer eaten by his hogs - U.S. News



> On Wednesday morning, Terry V. Garner, a 70-year-old Oregon farmer, went to feed his animals. Several hours later, when he hadnât returned, a family member went to look for him and found, on the ground of the hog enclosure, his dentures.
> 
> Further investigation of the enclosure by the family member revealed that the hogs, which each weighed about 700 pounds, had nearly completely eaten the farmer, although some body parts were strewn about the enclosure.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

cooper101 said:


> You should avoid anything that had been on a person's plate. Only get scraps from the kitchen. They generally don't like potatoes, onions, or citrus.


Plated food is fine but it should be cooked. They will also eat cooked potatoes but not raw.


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## jwal10 (Jun 5, 2010)

Unless you have come up with something to counter act this I can guaranty I will be able to smell it when the meat is cooked. Beef, sheep, pigs and rabbits, even deer that have eaten this. I have seen it all over time, the fat holds the smell....James


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## Zilli (Apr 1, 2012)

I remember years ago - when I was between raising my own - I bought a butcher hog from a guy who raised his pigs almost exclusively on stuff he got from the bread store, as well as a lot of dairy products (milk, yogurt, etc.) from a store he had an arrangement with to pick up all their pulled dairy products.

A woman I knew at that time, who raised hogs herself and who was familiar with this guy, swore up and down that the meat from that butcher hog was going to taste like Twinkies.

LOL It didn't. In fact, it was very tasty - probably from all the dairy products.

I also used to work in a country grocery/convenience store with a hot case and one of my co-workers had permission to take home everything left over in the hot case at closing time. She took home fried chicken, burritos, corn dogs, jalapeno poppers, pizza, etc. to feed her to hogs; she told me she never bought commercial feed, that what she got out of the hot case is what they got. She didn't even bother to remove the sticks from the corn dogs!

I never ate any of her pork, but I did see her animals and they were very thin.


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## ChristieAcres (Apr 11, 2009)

James, it sounds as if the bulk of what they ate wasn't right before slaughtering. Also I think he missed the fact you were referring to the *diet nearing slaughtering time.*

We stopped feeding strongly flavored veggies and seafood to our pigs their last month. The meat is delicious!


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

No, I didn't miss that 'diet near slaughter time' note at all and I disagree as do my thousands of customers. We have approximately 400 pigs and deliver weekly to area stores and restaurants. We've been doing this for years. The pigs eat their broccoli, kale, rape, cabbage, etc (unlike some Presidents) and taste great. (Not sure how the Presidents taste.) Perhaps it didn't work for James. Perhaps he fed too much. I don't do a diet of *just* cole crops - that is a part of their total diet which is mostly pasture and dairy.


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## ChristieAcres (Apr 11, 2009)

I'd wager that wide diet variety coupled with dairy did the trick. I fed our pigs garlic to the end... Their diet was quite diverse. I was warned to cut back on strongly flavored veggies and the seafood, so we did, just their last month.


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## TimG (May 13, 2009)

My pigs don't like raw potatoes, but they chow down on boiled potatoes.

They did eat raw potatoes that sat in their pen a couple days (or buried them, or smashed them beyond recognition).

They have left lemons and limes alone, I still see some after a couple of weeks in the pen (which is why I assume the eventually ate the potatoes).


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## markcrain (Oct 21, 2010)

Lots of great advice here. Love it. I was wondering though, whats wrong with the scraps off a plate at the restaurant? I would think it wouldnt matter.


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## cooper101 (Sep 13, 2010)

Just a higher risk of getting germs from a wide array of people. Pigs can get some human diseases and vice-versa. Who knows what gets in the food after it leaves the kitchen. If it's just for your consumption, you can decide if you want to use it. If you're selling any meat, I would check on the legality of it in your area. (Probably illegal)


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

markcrain said:


> Lots of great advice here. Love it. I was wondering though, whats wrong with the scraps off a plate at the restaurant? I would think it wouldnt matter.


It really doesn't matter. But some people worry because swine and humans seem to share a lot of zoonotic diseases. Some people are just more queasy than others.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

The primary problem with plate scrapings is that people can give disease to pigs who then can give the disease back to people. Thus in most localities post consumer wastes are banned or a requirement for cooking is in the regulations.

Pre-consumer wastes avoid this problem.

Another problem with plate scrapings is cutlery (knives, etc), broken glass, etc. They can kill your pigs, punch through your boots, etc.

We also feed garlic, it is a good dewormer.


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## downsized (Aug 28, 2012)

In Ohio, you have to have a license to feed 'garbage' to swine:

Type of License: Animal Industry (Garbage Feeder)
Who Needs This License? Person feeding to and/or treating garbage for swine
Licensing Period: Annual (Expires December 31)
Annual Fee: $100
Requirements: Application and inspection


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

Pigs and humans do seem to experience zoonotic diseases more than humans and other animals.Kind of a sad fact that we seem to be so much like pigs, isn't it? 

I suppose if people raised primates for food then that would be a bigger problem, but Thank God, we don't.


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## downsized (Aug 28, 2012)

Something I came across about feeding meat to pigs from a snopes article about how if you pour coke on pork, worms will come wriggling out. ( snopes.com: Pork and Coke )

... well, then... I guess I can't cut/paste from the page. Basically CDC (or some gov agency) doesn't allow raw meat to be fed to hogs because that can cause Trichinosis infection. You'll have to go to the linked page to read it or follow the CDC link.


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## kwagner21 (Oct 12, 2004)

what about coffe grounds? i read somewhere not to, but i don't know if it isn't good for the pigs or they just won't eat it.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

Please don't perpetuate that coke myth. Just mentioning it spreads the rumor. At least mention that it is false if you're going to bring it up.

No, feeding raw meat to pigs will not give them Trichinosis, unless there is Trichinosis in the meat.

Trichinosis is exceedingly rare. If you want to get Trichinosis then eat under cooked bear meat. I've read that is the leading source of Trichinosis. Wolf, badger, wild boars and humans are sources too. Cook your food. The new recommendation is 145Â°F.

As to humans and pigs crossing over disease, humans and chickens are also very good at it. Pigs are just in the news recently, that is all.


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## downsized (Aug 28, 2012)

highlands said:


> Please don't perpetuate that coke myth. Just mentioning it spreads the rumor. At least mention that it is false if you're going to bring it up.


Sorry about that, the link is to snopes who do debunk the myth.


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## caveman (Sep 28, 2012)

Foot and mouth and swine vesticular disease are two of the real bad things to worry about, especially if the pigs should consume meat or foods from the same plate as meats and gravy which may have originated from south america and other countries where these diseases are endemic.


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## markcrain (Oct 21, 2010)

Everything I get from there is cooked. I'm not sure of what disease I would have to worry about the pig catching from eating plate scrapings. from what I read the foot and mouth or SVD are fairly rare. Is it more of a human queasiness as a reason not to or is there a real probable danger? I hate to pass on free feed due to just a yucky factor.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

> I'm not sure of what disease I would have to worry about the pig catching from eating plate scrapings.
> 
> 
> > Colds, flu and a host of other human diseases can be transmitted from humans to pigs. Plate scrapings are a wonderful way to do this. Fine to do if you want to for meat you raise for your own table but don't do it for meat you sell.


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## cedarcreekranch (Nov 24, 2010)

Different states have different laws regarding feeding restaurant 'waste', and many require it to be cooked BY THE FARMER before he feeds it, even if it's cooked at the restaurant first. We raised a lot of pigs to slaughter on the bread & milk diet but the local bread outlet raised its prices for 'feed bread' & made it less feasible to feed that instead of feed so the last batch of fat hogs were fed a baked feed made locally and the dairy products (with occasional orange juice that they LOVE, flavored drinks now and then, and their favorite of all - CHOCOLATE MILK! LOL) One fellow told me they'd have 'soft fat' but we've had no trouble with it or complaints from customers. they all rave about our pork so must be doing it right. ;-) 

Ours also get produce from the small local grocery store now and then and it's funny to watch which ones like what. One boar we had loved onions - he'd PEEL them and only eat the inside layers. Most of them love oranges, they crush them & suck the juice, then eat the rest. Potatoes they'd eat if they were cut up but not whole, although one man we knew in Arkansas got a truckload of taters once & dumped the whole works for his pigs. He said they ate them when they got hungry enough but after seeing his poor porkers, I'd say they were hungry enough to eat anything! I heard he sold out and I was glad for the sake of his swine.

Sorry, got off track a bit but I'd be very careful of the restaurant food.


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