# Feeding Meat to Pigs?



## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

My grandfather, decades long ago, had a few acres on a mountain top in the Smokies. He raised much of his own food including a few pigs each year and cured hams in a half underground shed. I have no idea how it's done today by homesteaders, but the hams were wrapped in what I guess was a cheese cloth. They would be black with mold that had to be cut away. As a small boy grown up in the city, I was grossed out right up until I had my first taste. It was wonderful. 

I'm going to be getting pigs in about a year and have been reading several books. One is adamant that the eleventh commandment is, "No meat shall ever touch the lips of a pig." According to this author, that is how pigs get diseases, worms, and worship the devil. My grandfather fed table scraps, butchering scraps from chickens and anything he hunted which included rabbit, squirrel, and deer. 

DO any of you feed meat to your pigs and what do you think of grandpas practices?


----------



## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

Clean, healthy meat is a good source nutrients for all sorts of animals including pigs. But feeding meat to pigs is illegal in some (many?) states. The laws date to issues with disease transmission. Cooking the meat would solve those problems but regulations tend to get made hard and fast and be a substitute for thinking.

My suggestion would be to check with your state regs and if it is illegal do not feed meat to your pigs. If it is legal it probably requires cooking and even if it doesn't require that it would still be wise just to be sure you don't have a problem.

The big thing is you want to break disease cycles.


----------



## bruceki (Nov 16, 2009)

There are both state and federal laws on feeding meat to pigs. I wrote a blog entry earlier this year with the background on why the laws were written. you'll find that here. 

Pigs will happily eat it, and in the wild, they'll seek it out. Our modern version of vegetarian diets for chickens and pigs is just that -- not based on what the animal would prefer. 

Bruce / ebeyfarm.blogspot.com


----------



## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

Thanks Highlands and Bruce. Bruce, read your blog and the S Korea article. Very informative. Since these pigs will be for family consumption and not for sale, I'm not worried about state and fed inspectors but I will be cautious about meat sources.


----------



## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

We feed meat instead of soy. We either feed fresh immediately, or frozen to avoid rotting. They always clean it up rather quickly.


----------



## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

I've never fed meat to pigs. I've got dogs. The dogs get any meat that I don't want, which isn't a lot of it.


----------



## txplowgirl (Oct 15, 2007)

Out in west texas where I grew up it was known as a no no to feed meat to pigs because it made them mean as a snake. I do know they will go nuts and run over anyone and anything trying to get a snake. 
The feral hogs in Texas are known to attack people if they can get a hold of em. Another reason besides the overpopulation is there are reports of them eating peoples newborn calves, sheep, goats, chickens, you name it.


----------



## Paquebot (May 10, 2002)

Feeding meat or garbage to hogs is only illegal if you plan to sell the meat. Never had to call for a rendering truck in the old days if one had hogs on the farm. Even the last horse to die on our home farm was dragged to the hog pasture where it vanished within a couple months. 

Martin


----------



## bruceki (Nov 16, 2009)

Ceseumpec -- that's the basic take home lesson. If it's for your own consumption and on your own property, the chances are you'll never have a legal issue. Just be careful about all food sources. 
The final thing about feeding meat is that if you feed too much it gives the fat on the pig a yellowish tinge -- similar to what you see on jersey beef. It's not harmful, and doesn't affect the taste, but visually it's a bit distracting. figure more than about 10% of the calories is the limit.

Bruce / ebeyfarm.blogspot.com


----------



## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

we fed all of our chicken carcasses and the leftovers from a goat butcheringto the pigs we raised this year. They turned out quite tasty and didn't get mean at all.
My neighbor raises heritage blacks and they got mean after he fed butcher scraps though...couldn't put a hand in their pen at all


----------



## BillHoo (Mar 16, 2005)

Generally meat is not bad for them. But we got diseases like mad cow by feeding diseased animals ground up into cow feed. 

Predators are not good to eat because toxins and heavy metals in plants get concentrated in herbivores and further concentrated in predators when they eat the animals.

It shouldn't be bad in small amounts. I just wouldn't make it a practice.


----------



## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

a pig is an omnivore and feeding it meat is far different than feeding meat to an herbivore like a cow.


----------



## Dry Bridge (Jul 7, 2010)

txplowgirl said:


> Out in west texas where I grew up it was known as a no no to feed meat to pigs because it made them mean as a snake. I do know they will go nuts and run over anyone and anything trying to get a snake.
> The feral hogs in Texas are known to attack people if they can get a hold of em. Another reason besides the overpopulation is there are reports of them eating peoples newborn calves, sheep, goats, chickens, you name it.


The following at least is an opinion of our predescesors...



The Hog; A Treatise On The Breeds said:


> Animal Substances. There cannot be a doubt but that these are highly fattening in their nature, and also that swine, being somewhat allied to the carnivors will greedily devour them; but the question is, Do they not tend to make the flesh strong and rank, to inflame the blood, to create in the animals a longing for more of such food, and thus lead them to destroy fowls, rabbits, ducks, and even the litters of their companions? Many will give blood, entrails, scraps of refuse meat, horse-flesh, and such like, to swine, but we should decidedly discourage such practices; the nearest approach to animal food we would admit should be pot-liquor, and dairy refuse. Animal food is bad for every kind of swine; and tends to make them savage and feverish, and often lays the foundation of serious inflamation of the intestines.


Now whether this holds any truth or not, I leave it to others more capable of offering their experience.

Paul B.


----------



## duckidaho (Dec 31, 2008)

I fed mine meat occasionally. If I had something freezer burned, I'd cook it and feed it to the pigs. Also cooked table scraps. We didn't feed them much of it. Our pigs taste great this year. The best pork I've ever had in my life.


----------



## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

With dogs, I've been told you don't feed them chicken bones, Does it matter with pigs?


----------



## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

with dogs it is the cooked chicken bones that are an issue. Raw bones are not a problem. Our 3 pigs ate almost 100 chicken carcasses without a problem.


----------



## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

thanks, that makes sense. I've never seen a wild pig ordering deboned chicken in a restaurant,


----------



## blaineiac (Jan 10, 2010)

I feed my dogs cooked chicken bones too. If I don't, the will tear up the trash and eat them anyways. And that makes for the dogs eating the bones and me cleaning up trash. I skip step 2 and just let them have them. As far as my hogs, I'll give the breeders any deer scraps, There's a lot of shoulder meat left. The dogs usually get the chickens though. I did see the pigs get one a few weeks ago, it must have gotten stepped on during the feeding frenzy. That was suprising because the birds eat with the pigs. I've seen them picking leftovers out of the pigs beards. Well, they do eat meat and I don't think it makes them "mean" or "chicken killers". Sometimes one is unlucky and gets turned into bacon, but they get along pretty well. Blaine


----------



## matt_man (Feb 11, 2006)

My mom is terrified of hogs. She had a friend growing up that lived on a dairy farm. They used to feed the dead calves to their pigs. One day the owner fell in the pig pen and they ate him.

That being said, we feed our hogs table scraps - which sometimes include meat but never other pork. They have been known to snatch a chicken also if they get too close to the feed trough. We've never had a problem with them trying to go after us.


----------



## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

sammyd said:


> with dogs it is the cooked chicken bones that are an issue. Raw bones are not a problem.


Sounds like a myth. Our dogs eat pork bones _and_ chicken bones raw, roasted, boiled, etc. We have had a lot of dogs for decades and all of them ate the bones. Never a problem.


----------



## CarolT (Mar 12, 2009)

A lot has to do if the dog is used to eating them from puppyhood on, I think. That said, I remember a dog at the vet's that pooped blood for over a week with hambone shards in it from the holiday hambone the owner's let him have. Seen them die from punctured intestines from porkchop and fried chicken bones. I tend not to let my dogs have bones anymore.

Some dogs may never have a problem, I can't afford the vet bill if mine decide to not be in that category. Each to his own.

To the OP, I feed my pigs everything but pork. Never had them become aggressive, so I see no reason not to keep on, they taste fine


----------



## Rogo (Jan 1, 2006)

My parents fed the cooked bones to the dogs after a meal and I always have. A vet once told me that he won't admit it openly due to folks going nuts, but he's always fed the cooked bones to his dogs after the humans have had their meal.

When dogs are free choice fed, they don't wolf down their feed or the bones. They eat slowly. Perhaps that's why some of us haven't had any problems. So whether from, poultry, cattle, swine, game, whatever, the dogs get the bones. Tonight it will be turkey and swine bones! I give the dogs a few bones each day, not all at once.


----------

