# What not to feed pigs



## Tall Grille

I am new to pig raising this year. I planned to start my pig experience raising two pigs but since I am using my grandmothers land I could not say no to her when she invited more family members in on the deal, so we ended up with five pigs and all of my relatives who bought piglets are looking to me as if I am an expert. I have done 90% of the work building the pen and feeding and watering them but I keep getting phone calls asking "Can the pigs have this?" We have 5 different families saving table scraps for the pigs. I would like to hang a sign near the pen with a list of things not to feed them. But I don't know what should be included on the list. Any input would be appreciated.
Josh


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## Mare Owner

Raw potatoes are a general "no" for pigs (though they can have a little, just not much of their total intake as they can be poisonous raw, cooked are fine). Beyond that, all veggie scraps from the kitchen go to our hogs, plus bread and eggs. I can't think of any other bad foods off the top of my head. Good luck with your new pigs!


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## cooper101

In my experience, they won't eat asparagus, broccoli, bell peppers, raw onions, banana peels (love bananas), citrus fruit. Save all that for compost or just pitch it. Just makes the pen messy when they don't eat it. There was a post recently about some other things that were not good for them; search for that. I've found they're pretty good at picking out what they don't like and I think part of that is they know it's not good for them. I didn't know about potatoes being bad for them. They would never eat them; now that make sense. 

I can't believe I've cooked for the pigs, but they do seem to like things cooked they won't eat raw. I had a lot of old venison. They loved it if I just boiled it or browned the hamburger, but one wouldn't eat it raw. A different pig ate it raw, but liked it a lot better cooked.


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## pointer_hunter

I heard through the grapevine that the Michigan DNR are trying to push out the word that no raw meat should be fed to pigs. I'm not totally sure what their reasoning is.


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## thesedays

I thought pig feed was supposed to be boiled anyway, to reduce the risk of parasites.


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## olivehill

Pigs have likes and dislikes so yours may or may not eat what others' hogs will eat. I have one that dislikes carrots, another that has spit green beans out because he found them so unpalatable. In general however, there's not a whole lot that is a sure fire NO. And the beauty of pigs is they tend, given the opportunity, to be good at knowing what to eat and what not to eat. Now, I say "given the opportunity" because any animal will eat just about anything if locked in a pen long enough without any other choice. So if yours are on a dirt lot and on limited feed do realize they may be less than picky about what you serve up. 

Raw Potatoes, as metioned, can be toxic. Plants in the nightshade family also can be. Pumpkins are generally not recommended for young pigs as they can contribute to scours. Our older pigs love pumpkins however and I've never seen any digestive upset from them -- the seeds act as a natural wormer. Raw meat and "raw" post consumer waste can carry disease, bacteria, etc. 

And then there is the simple fact that you are what you eat and, by extension, you are what you eat eats. Junk in, junk out. Meat quality is affected by feed choices, especially in the last few weeks before butcher but also throughout the growth period.


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## cooper101

I would also set some guidelines for all families on where they can get scraps from. If it's off your plate, that's one thing. If it's off a stranger's plate in some restaurant, that's different. They get all of our scraps, but I wouldn't get the slop bucket that's in my fifth-grader's lunch room at school. Who knows what bacteria those urchins are carrying. If one family is bringing 'bad' scraps, it'll affect everybody's pig.


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## highlands

I find that the pigs don't tend to eat what isn't good for them. They pick out citrus, onions, potatoes and leave them aside to rot. If you cook those things they'll eat them and get more nutrition from them. Cooking eggs increases the available protein too.

Our pigs eat tomatoes with gusto and even the tomato vines in the fall. No problem. It isn't a lot of their diet. The vast majority of what they get is pasture/hay and dairy. We also grow some pumpkins, beets, turnips and such as these are easy things for us to grow.

The big no-no is the post-consumer wastes. e.g., plate scrapings. The issue is disease being transmitted from people to pigs and then back to people as well as the potential for trichinosis from undercooked meat.

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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## Tall Grille

Thanks for the input. So far they have been eating mostly Grain (Blue Seal Pig and Sow Feed) and table scraps, I have sourced some produce from a company that provides salad stuff for local salad bars, they loved the Romaine Lettuce.
I am expanding there pen this weekend but we do not have enough useable land to consider it "Pasture". I plan to rotate the pen area. What should I plant in the old area that will be a good food supply when they a returned to that area?


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## ONG2

Ours love fish scraps, we make sure that there are no bones though. Don't know if the fish bones would hurt a hog or not.......anyone know?

MY BIL feed his hogs the cleanings from a grouse hunt, they sure thought that was great.


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## wildfrogs1

Would over ripe watermellons and canilopes be OK.

Does anyone have an idea how many pounds of acorns a year a 10" oak produces ?


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## NostalgicGranny

Wildfrogs1 our pigs love melons and cantalope.


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## wildfrogs1

Thanks for the info. I need to work on my spelling.:buds::ashamed:


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## bruceki

The issue about meat to pigs is based on various regulations that prohibit it. What the USDA and the state ag departments are concerned about is a case of foot--and-mouth disease (FMD) that originated from meat loaded in another country and eventually infected a pig, and spread from there, in 1929, but the government is very worried about it. So they require that any meat scraps fed to pigs be boiled for 30 minutes to sterilize them here in Washington State. 

"The US saw its latest FMD outbreak in Montebello, California in 1929. This outbreak originated in hogs that had eaten infected meat scraps from a tourist steamship that had stocked meat in Argentina. Over 3,600 animals were slaughtered and the disease was contained in less than a month.[14][15] "

Pigs love meat, and waste meat would be a good source of high-quality protein, but you need to check with your state ag department about the regulations involved to feed it to your pigs. 

Bruce / ebeyfarm.blogspot.com


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## HeritagePigs

Umm...don't you think the prohibition might also have something to do with the foot and mouth outbreak in the UK in 2001 caused by one farmer feeding meat to his pigs? The point is that the virus can easily be transmitted in uncooked meat (as can many other diseases). There aren't a lot of folks that would take the time to cook meat before feeding it to pigs; better to just discourage it altogether.


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## Tall Grille

So is meat from table scraps ok? I would only be feeding them meat that was leftover that we aren't going to eat. It would all be cooked to be eaten by humans. What about raw hot dogs? We had pork the other night and couldn't bring ourselves to save the leftover pork for the pigs, seems canibalistic.


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## kenworth

I wouldn't let everyone parade on and off the place where the hogs are kept. I would have them meet at a central place with the scraps and collect it from there, and be the one who sorted thru the selection. 

Limiting access (read: keep other family members out!!) and selective choices for scrap feeding will insure the hogs health and safety. 

I'm sure that 90% of the work would garner me interest in the other pigs, too.


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## velacreations

I've fed offal from rabbit butchering, and beef livers, too. I try and cook it, but if it is fresh from a healthy animal (like with the rabbits), I don't worry too much. I don't feed them any meat for at least 40 days prior to butcher.


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## tinknal

ONG2 said:


> Ours love fish scraps, we make sure that there are no bones though. Don't know if the fish bones would hurt a hog or not.......anyone know?
> 
> MY BIL feed his hogs the cleanings from a grouse hunt, they sure thought that was great.


Raw fish bones are fine. I've heard that cooked bones can cause problems.


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## HeritagePigs

One of the reasons I don't feed meat is my fear that they might start cannibalizing piglets (taste and smell of blood). I don't know if this is true or just a myth but I still worry. And my chickens are happy they aren't looked at as feathery nuggets...


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## Gailann Schrader

I don't feed meat to meat. It's how Creutzfeldt-Jakob (Mad Cow) disease started. Prions from the tankage. Meat to meat. 

I feed the meat to the dogs and leave the hogs with vegetable or fruit items. 

Mine LOVE pumpkins.


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## HeritagePigs

Here's a question. Why don't we eat predators? Those that eat meat. Tigers, dogs, eagles, etc. Ignore for the moment that we make them pets or they are endangered. Why do we tend to eat herbivores, or, at least omnivores? Do carnivores just taste bad? Not a trick question; i really want to know.

(Some folks eat fish which are mostly carnivores. But I don't. They taste fishy.)


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## velacreations

Gailann Schrader said:


> I don't feed meat to meat. It's how Creutzfeldt-Jakob (Mad Cow) disease started. Prions from the tankage. Meat to meat.
> 
> I feed the meat to the dogs and leave the hogs with vegetable or fruit items.
> 
> Mine LOVE pumpkins.


CJD (Mad cow) is from feeding meat to herbivores, and more specifically, similar herbivore meat to other herbivores. In other words, cannibalism.

Feeding meat to omnivores, like pigs, chickens, etc, doesn't have the same issues, as long as you are not feeding infected meat, and meat of the same or similar species.



> Why don't we eat predators? Those that eat meat. Tigers, dogs, eagles, etc. Ignore for the moment that we make them pets or they are endangered. Why do we tend to eat herbivores, or, at least omnivores? Do carnivores just taste bad?


Lots of people eat bears, which are omnivores, but pretty close to predators, and I've known quite a few people who eat lion. Folks love alligator, bass, sharks, squid, etc.

SO to answer your question, people do eat predators. They are not as common, mainly because there are less predators. If you had the choice to eat either one of 100 wildebeest, or a lion, which do you choose? The wildebeest are more numerous and easier to kill.

Raising predators for food is VERY energy intensive, so folks just eat the predator's food, instead.


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## HeritagePigs

Good answer, thanks. It just struck me that humans seem to eat animals that don't eat other animals, in general. I guess it also makes sense that trying to kill a cow means that it won't be trying to kill you back...


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## olivehill

> I guess it also makes sense that trying to kill a cow means that it won't be trying to kill you back...


Unless it's a Jersey bull.... LOL!


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## miraclemant

Since nobody mentioned it, both apricot and cherry pits contain a toxin that will at least sicken if not outright kill animals...
So... if you are planning to plant an orchard... make sure that these two trees are NOT in a pasture setting, of if you have already have them, be sure to fence off the area around these trees to protect the health of you animals.


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## Laura Workman

miraclemant said:


> Since nobody mentioned it, both apricot and cherry pits contain a toxin that will at least sicken if not outright kill animals...
> So... if you are planning to plant an orchard... make sure that these two trees are NOT in a pasture setting, of if you have already have them, be sure to fence off the area around these trees to protect the health of you animals.


Dang! I wish I'd known this before I cracked open and ate up all those apricot pits as a kid. (Taste like almonds!) I never got sick at all, though, so maybe they were strange apricots.


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## preparing

many thanks to those who contributed to this thread. It was exactly the type of info I was looking for.

Happy day after Thanksgiving. God Bless!


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## Raeven

Laura Jensen said:


> Dang! I wish I'd known this before I cracked open and ate up all those apricot pits as a kid. (Taste like almonds!) I never got sick at all, though, so maybe they were strange apricots.


Funny (not ha ha) thing; the bitter almond taste in apricot pits is the cyanide that makes them poisonous.


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## Laura Workman

Yeah, I think if I'd simply face-planted into a pile of shelled kernels, there might have been trouble. As it was, though, I think the trouble of shelling them kept my consumption down to well within safe levels. My grandpa thought they were good, too, which is why he saved them.


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## gerold

Tall Grille said:


> I am new to pig raising this year. I planned to start my pig experience raising two pigs but since I am using my grandmothers land I could not say no to her when she invited more family members in on the deal, so we ended up with five pigs and all of my relatives who bought piglets are looking to me as if I am an expert. I have done 90% of the work building the pen and feeding and watering them but I keep getting phone calls asking "Can the pigs have this?" We have 5 different families saving table scraps for the pigs. I would like to hang a sign near the pen with a list of things not to feed them. But I don't know what should be included on the list. Any input would be appreciated.
> Josh


Good luck on your new business.
Rules have to be written about feeding and visits. 
When people visit you should provide them with little throw away plastic boots to wear when they are in your pig area. Like another poster said collect all table left overs and feed them yourself if they are ok. I would not feed them meat period. Pigs will eat just about any kind of veg. Just about any kind of cooked table food they will love. It will not take you long to learn what they eat best. They will eat just about any kind of bread. Just make sure its not green. . Couple of Questions what kind of pigs do you have? How old are they? Are they bred yet? Do you plan on keeping all for breeding stock or some of them for butchering. 

Best to you,
Gerold.


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## Forest

velacreations said:


> I've fed offal from rabbit butchering, and beef livers, too. I try and cook it, but if it is fresh from a healthy animal (like with the rabbits), I don't worry too much. I don't feed them any meat for at least 40 days prior to butcher.


Sooo... when you say offal- do you mean everything including guts full of... digested material? Or just organs like livers/kidney?


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## Goat Servant

I havent read any posts & dont raise hogs, but dont feed them just fish guts or alot of kitchen scraps & no grain. Slimey yucky meat.


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## FarmerRob

Tall Grille said:


> So is meat from table scraps ok? I would only be feeding them meat that was leftover that we aren't going to eat. It would all be cooked to be eaten by humans. What about raw hot dogs? We had pork the other night and couldn't bring ourselves to save the leftover pork for the pigs, seems canibalistic.


I hope you read carefully what Highlands said above, "The big no-no is the post-consumer wastes. e.g., plate scrapings. The issue is disease being transmitted from people to pigs and then back to people as well as the potential for trichinosis from undercooked meat."

When I hear "table scraps" I think leftovers scrapped from peoples plates. If that is the case, and you will not be able to monitor the contributions of your other relatives, then you are risking disease to the pigs and to yourself and your family. If you go ahead with the table scraps then I would strongly suggest that you boil this concoction for 30 - 60 minutes and then let it cool to room temp or course before feeding it. That is a lot of trouble, but from my experience, it is not a good idea to trust other people to not cut corners and take the lazy way.


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## Amadioranch

On not feeding apricot pits.......don't know how valid that is. We have a huge apricot tree that produces thousands of apricots every year. We feed both our cattle and pigs whole buckets of fruit and they definately eat the pits. Been doing it for years and never any problem.


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## Jcran

I've heard that if you plan to feed post-consumer table scraps, etc. that you should cook them to 170 degrees first. We ended up cooking all our pig food (grain, apples, old tortillas) because the raw apples made them sick once (drunk maybe?). Anyhow, they LOVED LOVED LOVED their cooked meals with goat milk poured over it. And I must say the two meals we've had of pork chops from this latest pig have knocked my socks off.


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## ChristieAcres

We happen to be the folks who boil the meat for a full hour before feeding it to our pigs. They have had Salmon, Cod, Chicken, and Turkey. Their diet is much like ours, but as Posts above have warned, there are certainly items that shouldn't be fed to pigs. I may have missed it, but nothing molded or rotten should be fed to them. If it isn't safe for us to eat, than it isn't safe for our pigs. They like Leeks and also Green Onions (?). However, we have fed them very small quantities, after hearing it could upset their tummies. Also, I have been cooking up regular bean stews for them, using vegetables in it, sometimes meat, and adding beef or chicken broth. Ours have had quite a diverse diet, high in protein, and they have had a lot of space to run & play in. Our orchard looks just great, just like it was rototilled after all the sod was removed, and converting it to Permaculture will be a snap! Next year, the entire 5,000 sq ft will be planted. 

We are considering doing what some other locals have. Fencing in two areas, and rotating them for pig yards, so every other year, the one not used will be planted for additional pig food. They won't go in our orchard again! DH encircled the trees with wire fencing, to protect the trunks, and also pruned them. They are finishing out at 7.5 months, but we expected that due to them having all that space and not being fed commercial food. A few other pig farmers checked out our pigs recently and gave them high scores for being awesome healthy pigs... Must be all that Comfrey, Garlic, Rosemary, Pumpkins, and so much of my other homegrown organic veggies/fruits! Spoiled happy pigs make yummy pigs, I am told.

As has been posted, if selling to others, there are feeding guidelines that must be followed. We opted to share with our family and won't be selling pigs we are raising. It has been a fun experience, but we are going to enjoy our time off. Wow, pigs sure eat a lot! We aren't interested in breeding and now have a source for buying our pigs for a lot less. Although we are going to have ours slaughtered & butchered locally, they have a great reputation. We are only opting for the cut/wrap. Any smoking, sausage, or bacon, we will do ourselves. After researching it, DH decided he needed to see it done before tackling it. Of course, a friend of ours is going to have one of his pigs slaughtered soon, so DH is going to go watch.


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## Riverdale

Laura Jensen said:


> Dang! I wish I'd known this before I cracked open and ate up all those apricot pits as a kid. (Taste like almonds!) I never got sick at all, though, so maybe they were strange apricots.


Cyanide (when taken orally) has an almondy smell, or so the spy books say


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## Riverdale

Jcran said:


> I've heard that if you plan to feed post-consumer table scraps, etc. that you should cook them to 170 degrees first. We ended up cooking all our pig food (grain, apples, old tortillas) because the raw apples made them sick once (drunk maybe?). Anyhow, they LOVED LOVED LOVED their cooked meals with goat milk poured over it. And I must say the two meals we've had of pork chops from this latest pig have knocked my socks off.


From a "Dirty Jobs" episode. There is a hog producer just outside of Las Vegas that has the contract to dispose of the 'waste' (ie leftovers) from some the famous Vegas buffets. He has a BIG cooker that it all goes into for a set time and temperature.

Wonder how many times some of that bacon has gone through those buffets?


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## Laura Workman

Riverdale said:


> Cyanide (when taken orally) has an almondy smell, or so the spy books say


Yup. My point is that everything containing cyanide isn't necessarily poisonous. In fact, cyanide is found lots of places, including "certain plant foods, including almonds, millet sprouts, lima beans, soy, spinach, bamboo shoots, and cassava roots." Quoted from this non-authoritative, but probably correct,source: http://jstorplants.org/2010/07/26/cyanide-and-almonds/ .


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## lonelyfarmgirl

Two answers here. 
First, the meat issue. We feed meat, all kinds except pork. No cannibalism. The law in WI, is you can't feed anything that is prone to rotting. It's a very vague law, but it stemmed from trichinosis from table scraps from outside sources. Feeding your own is fine. 

Anything that dies gets chucked straight into the pig runs. We feed less meat in the summer months, as anything they don't finish is prone to rotting. We usually freeze it all and give it to them frozen. By the time it thaws, its gone, no rotting. In the winter, they get all we have. 

We have never cooked any food for them. Don't have time for that nonsense. 
In only one incident have we had a pig kill and eat a live animal. A goat kidded in the dark and the baby wandered thru the fence holes still wet with afterbirth.

Our pigs are in with all manners of poultry, goats, cows, cats, etc.. Never a problem. Our boars don't eat the babies. We do isolate the mothers, but babies fit thru fence holes and at the 3 week old point, they simply go wherever they want.

As far as the apricot pits go, apricot pits actually have a substance in them which reverses cancer. They do have cyanide in them, but if you eat them sparingly, as you would a vitamin, you'll be fine. Here is a website link with more info. I chose it randomly off google when I searched apricot pits cure cancer. Research for yourself.
http://www.1cure4cancer.com/


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## highlands

Our pigs tend to spit out the peach pits. I suspect it would take an aweful lot to get enough cyanide to have much effect. Apple seeds also have cyanide in them and pigs swallow those in large quantities with no ill effect. Probably the seeds pass right through - that is a plant strategy for getting deposited in fertilizer.

We separate our ewes from the pigs during lambing to prevent incidences. Learned that once years ago.

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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## CarolT

My pigs eat raw potatoes and haven't had a problem... Next time I let them have any, they'll probably fall over dead :-(

My pigs get everything (except pork!) until they get within a few months of slaughter.


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## Shygal

My pig thinks that leftover rice from the chinese food place, is the food of the gods


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## Rreenman

You are what you eat and pigs are no different. Several years ago, decades actually, we purchased a couple of hogs for butcher from a dairy farmer who had fed his hogs milk. That sour milk tasted passed right on through to the meat. Since that we have raised our own and are fed only grain. No meat, no dairy, just straight up grain with maybe some vegetables now and again. The meat is phenomenal from those pigs.


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## highlands

Milk doesn't cause a sour taste in the pork. I suspect that the problem you ran into was feeding _too_much_. Variety and moderation in all things. Just milk alone would not make a good diet. It's too low in fiber for one thing.

We free feed dairy to our pigs. They eat about 80% Dry Matter Intake (DMI) of pasture which is their foundation diet. They consume about 7% dairy DMI when free fed - its self-limiting by how much they can put through their system. We have mostly whey - milk is much better nutritionally. Yogurtizing or clabbering the milk improves digestibility. We feed no commercial hog feed / grain. Seasonally they do get pumpkins, apples, spent barley from a local brew pub and such as available - this makes up the other ~13% of their diet.

-Walter

PS. Please fill in your location information which makes it easier to answer questions. At the very least your zone. See this thread:

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/livestock-forums/pigs/505485-please-fill-location-info.html


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## woodsman14

HeritagePigs said:


> Here's a question. Why don't we eat predators? Those that eat meat. Tigers, dogs, eagles, etc. Ignore for the moment that we make them pets or they are endangered. Why do we tend to eat herbivores, or, at least omnivores? Do carnivores just taste bad? Not a trick question; i really want to know.
> 
> (Some folks eat fish which are mostly carnivores. But I don't. They taste fishy.)


Sure we do, bear is hunted and eatten, at least in Michigan it is. It's really good too. Many Asian cultures eat dog. I've heard that cat and fox are both tainted with something like acidic urine smell and taste. I'm sure everything has been tried at some time or another. Sherk fin soup etc.


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## Fiend

I read somewhere that in some midwest state or states that butchered rabbits had to be sold with the rear feet intact because people were selling stray cats as rabbit. Apparently to most people a butchered cat and a butchered rabbit carcass look the same. I don't know if its true but its something I read a few years back.


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## willbeast

What about hedge apples?


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## cooper101

When I was stationed in Korea, I lived off-base. There was a restaurant that served dog on my corner and at least 3 kennels/farms close to my apartment that raised dogs for meat. It wasn't odd to see someone butchering a cat. I tried dog meat once. Stringy, pretty bland.

It's a lot easier to hunt and/or domesticate animals that don't attack and/or eat you.


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## highlands

One of the nice things about pigs is they don't rip my arm off. If I tried to pickup a dog it would be a different story. Our dogs have jaws that open to nearly 90Â° and can grab you whole head. They bite right through thick beef leg bones in a single snap that sounds like a rifle shot. They have long dagger like teeth and sharp cutting teeth behind those. Dogs are flexible and can twist around fast to bite someone on their tail with east. They also have claws that they do use and can twist their wrists to grab things and then bite with those afore mentioned jaws. Dogs are naturally predators and work in coordination - they'll all attack you at once.

Pigs on the other hand are herd animals. They don't fight in a coordinated attack manner. Their jaws are strong but they don't open very far. They're tusks are sharp but curved back so they're not nearly as dangerous. Pig bodies are stiff and incapable of the fast turns and flexibility of dogs and humans. Pigs are not really predators. 

Best of all pigs grow amazingly fast putting on huge amounts of good meat in a short time frame and have large litters. They have dogs beat hands down in the meat production per year. One sow can produce nearly three tons of pork in a year once each litter grows to market size of 250 lbs in about six months. That's hanging weight, not live weight. Live weight it's almost four tons. Dogs can't touch that.

As always, eat the mean ones. Breed the tame ones. Feed for flavor.

-Walter


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## SVCostanzo

Fiend said:


> I read somewhere that in some midwest state or states that butchered rabbits had to be sold with the rear feet intact because people were selling stray cats as rabbit. Apparently to most people a butchered cat and a butchered rabbit carcass look the same. I don't know if its true but its something I read a few years back.


:hijacked:
Sorry for the hijack, but I had to comment on this. LOL I knew a butcher and he told me this story many years ago. It was where the "lucky rabbit's foot" legend came from. 
Back in the day, when butcher shops and not grocery stores where the norm, you would often see hams, sausages, and various dressed carcasses hanging in the shops. When a rabbit has no head or feet and no skin, it does look remarkably like a cat would. Evidently, in some lean hunting years, when a frontier town was overrun by cats, someone had the brilliant idea to sell cats to the butchers. Some customers caught on and, gasp, scandal! To prove that their meat was in fact rabbit, the butchers would leave one foot attached instead of removing it during skinning, as a cat's foot cannot be mistaken for a "lucky" rabbit's foot. 
I do not know if this is still, or ever was, a state requirement, but it is a butcher legend. 
:hijacked:


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## SVCostanzo

As to what to feed or not feed pigs, my sister has pigs and she was told to not feed dairy to her pigs if they were to be consumed because it affects the taste of the meat. It is fine to feed dairy to "pet" pigs - her potbellies are petting-zoo animals. 
That being said, since a lot of her pig feed is unused food donations, they do get some dairy as well as tons of produce and breads/baked goods. We also give them kitchen scraps (but not from plates). They don't get any meat that I am aware of. In the fall, they enjoy pumpkins as much as the goats - the seeds act as a de-wormer for many animals.


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## highlands

SVCostanzo said:


> As to what to feed or not feed pigs, my sister has pigs and she was told to not feed dairy to her pigs if they were to be consumed because it affects the taste of the meat. It is fine to feed dairy to "pet" pigs - her potbellies are petting-zoo animals.


Perhaps if all you fed was dairy it would be an issue but as a part of their diet it makes for delicious pork. Our pigs eat about 80% pasture by dry matter intake (DMI) and about 7% dairy (mostly whey). The rest of their diet is pumpkins, apples, a little spent barley from a local brew pub, occasional bread from a local bakery and other things as seasonally available. We feed no commercial grain based hog feeds.

Dairy makes for wonderful pork - we sell weekly to local stores, restaurants and individuals with repeat customers going back more than a decade. That proves how delicious it is - people wouldn't keep buying it if it wasn't.

So I call myth on that. Dairy doesn't ruin the meat, it makes for great pork. So why would people tell you that? Perhaps they're over feeding milk as the pig's sole diet. That would be too much fat and not enough fiber. Perhaps they have an ulterior motive like wanting to sell you commercial hog feed - money makes liars of many.

-Walter
Sugar Mountain Farm
in Vermont

PS. Please fill in your location information which makes it easier to answer questions. At the very least your zone. See this thread:

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/livestock-forums/pigs/505485-please-fill-location-info.html


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