# why can't I feed table scraps to pigs?



## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

Yes, I know there is law involved, but realistically, what is the potential I can pass a disease from my mouth to my fork to my scraps to the slop bucket to the pig to the ham to my fork to my mouth?


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## grandma12703 (Jan 13, 2011)

There are a lot of folks who feed table scraps to hogs. I wouldn't feed meat items but why not the rest? Feed the meat to your dogs.


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## bigmudder77 (Jun 9, 2008)

You can just they said no meat idk why maybe there worried about (EX. Something from a cow or chicken like mad cow or bird flu to get mixed up with a pigs system and get the pig sick or have bad meat)

That would be my best guess about it all 

Or since there seems to be a lot "city cry babys" that think food they eat can't eat any other animals but what they don't know is chickens raised in factorys eat ones that die or start to at least and pigs will eat almost anything that is dead in there pen mice, rats, cats, birds and so on


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## Silvercreek Farmer (Oct 13, 2005)

The law would only apply to pork raised for sale. You can feed your pig for home consumption whatever you want. I just make sure to cook any pork or chicken scraps that go to the pig and nothing post consumer from restaurants ect. just our table.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

You can feed your pig table scraps. You might pass a disease to it but the law doesn't govern your doing it for your own consumption.

The law is concerned with if you intend to sell the meat. Then they would rather not have you spreading disease from humans to pigs and back to humans.

Cooking both ways is advisable.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

highlands said:


> You can feed your pig table scraps. You might pass a disease to it but the law doesn't govern your doing it for your own consumption.
> 
> The law is concerned with if you intend to sell the meat. Then they would rather not have you spreading disease from humans to pigs and back to humans.
> 
> Cooking both ways is advisable.


understood. I was aware the law requiring table scraps to be recooked was for market swine, not home use. I'm still curious as to how likely a disease can go from human to pig to human. 

Walter, another Q. I was trying to find pig nutrition info and found lots of info on content, vitamins, etc. What I could not find was a caloric requirement based on pig weight. Do you have any info on this?


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## mekasmom (Jan 19, 2010)

CesumPec said:


> Yes, I know there is law involved, but realistically, what is the potential I can pass a disease from my mouth to my fork to my scraps to the slop bucket to the pig to the ham to my fork to my mouth?


I wouldn't worry about feeding a pig scraps. Some people make laws and worry about everything.
And even if there is a remote chance of spreading germs to a pig, aren't you going to cook the meat anyway? 
Zoonosis between humans and pigs is more common than with other animals, but..... there are so many things to worry about in life. That one seems kind of remote.


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

CesumPec said:


> I'm still curious as to how likely a disease can go from human to pig to human.


Trichinosis parasites are one. Influenza is another. Pigs and humans share some susceptibilities. Cooking your meat helps tremendously.



CesumPec said:


> Walter, another Q. I was trying to find pig nutrition info and found lots of info on content, vitamins, etc. What I could not find was a caloric requirement based on pig weight. Do you have any info on this?


There are tables for many animals. I found one on the web years ago which I used to make an spreadsheet for my own use but I don't have the link at my finger tips at the moment. Google: swine OR hog OR pig nutrition calories OR caloric requirement OR requirements

swine OR hog OR pig nutrition calories OR caloric requirement OR requirements - Google Search

Ah, yes, there we have some, lots, of info. Root through that, dig in and enjoy.

Cheers,

-Walter


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## deaconjim (Oct 31, 2005)

We always fed our pigs kitchen (preparation) scraps. Frankly, we never had a lot of table scraps left for the pigs. Either way, if you're raising them for your own consumption and cooking it properly, you're probably safe enough.


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

CesumPec said:


> Yes, I know there is law involved, but realistically, what is the potential I can pass a disease from my mouth to my fork to my scraps to the slop bucket to the pig to the ham to my fork to my mouth?


Pigs can get sick from a lot of things. Why take the chance and add another reason that they may get a disease. You raise a pig for 5 mos. only for it to get sick in the end maybe. I don't feel table scraps.

Best,
Gerold.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

gerold said:


> Pigs can get sick from a lot of things. Why take the chance and add another reason that they may get a disease. You raise a pig for 5 mos. only for it to get sick in the end maybe. I don't feel table scraps.
> 
> Best,
> Gerold.


I spent summers on a family farm and table craps were part of the 80 - 100 odd pig's diet. Maybe it was no matter because with a herd that size, no one had a chance of getting a high enough concentration of germs to matter. 

I realize it is theoretically possible to transmit disease, I was just looking for something more concrete than the sky might fall fears.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

highlands said:


> Trichinosis parasites are one. Influenza is another. Pigs and humans share some susceptibilities. Cooking your meat helps tremendously.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Trichinosis isn't a fear that people will pass it to swine, or at least it is not a reasonable fear in the US. Flu germs I'll grant you could be viable.

thanks for the help with the google search but i had already tried that. Tried your search criteria as well and after about 15 attempts, still was not able to find some sort of formula or table that showed caloric requirements by weight of pig. I guess the industry doesn't look at it that way but for someone like me who is calorie aware, it would be easy to do a calculation / approximation in my head when using people food to replace a portion of pig chow. 

I thought of it while reading about avocados, which I'm planning on planting soon. 270 cal each, fairly dense nutritionally, high fat. Obviously not a protein replacement but as an offset, I could easily do something like 4 avocados replaces 1000 calories of chow if i knew that a pig of a given size needed say 4000 calories a day. But I wouldn't want to give 4000 calories of any one people food to that same pig knowing he wasn't getting a balanced diet.


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## oregon woodsmok (Dec 19, 2010)

You aren't going to pass any diseases to your pigs from your own table, as long as you aren't sick.

Food from restaurants is a different issue. There is no way to know if someone with tuberculosis or flu was sneezing all over their dinner or not. So, if you are going to feed table scraps from a restaurant, cook them really well. Better yet, limit your use to the restaurant scraps that never went out on a plate and then got brought back in.

It's fairly common to have employees working in restaurants who have hepatitis. So, you might want to look up whether or not pigs can catch hepatitis.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

oregon woodsmok said:


> You aren't going to pass any diseases to your pigs from your own table, as long as you aren't sick.
> 
> Food from restaurants is a different issue. There is no way to know if someone with tuberculosis or flu was sneezing all over their dinner or not. So, if you are going to feed table scraps from a restaurant, cook them really well. Better yet, limit your use to the restaurant scraps that never went out on a plate and then got brought back in.
> 
> It's fairly common to have employees working in restaurants who have hepatitis. So, you might want to look up whether or not pigs can catch hepatitis.


no, wasn't considering restaurant scraps unless i can find someone to give me un-served food. But I was wondering about food from my table because we have frequent guests.


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

CesumPec said:


> no, wasn't considering restaurant scraps unless i can find someone to give me un-served food. But I was wondering about food from my table because we have frequent guests.


Guests that come to my farm are supplied with plastic bootees to wear around my pigs. People carry germs on foot wear from other places. I am very serious about my pigs getting diseases.


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## arnie (Apr 26, 2012)

If you arn't sick you won't make the pig sick feed them your tablescraps with out worry as long as they are still fairly fresh and not soured .they didn't make you sick did they? Part of raiseing our own food and livestock inour homestead is that we can help each other stay healthy milking by hand and drinking the raw milk we use each other antibodys same with the raw honey from our bees and me by feeding and handling all the livestock we will be working together to fight off bad germs ect. We often only hear the down side about people and animails carring deasees and rarely the benifits.buy not draging them allover the country exposeing them to all kinds of things and stress and living in the same inviroment as you there and your immune systems are taking care most of us are giving our livestock a much cleaner and healther life than any factory farm whose large populations ship all overthe world and have lots of new animails and people from all over the world comeing into contact with them with the cheapest feeds from who knows what being fed to them .as homesteders producing our foods at home our woorys about stray deaseases go way down   .Mother nature and I are on your side and hope you enjoy you great home raised pork


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## highlands (Jul 18, 2004)

CesumPec said:


> Trichinosis isn't a fear that people will pass it to swine


The issue with Trich is insufficiently cooked meat from your table containing Trich then getting fed to your pigs where it grows. Fine if you want to eat it but not fine if you're selling the meat.

Things are more complicated.


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## secuono (Sep 28, 2011)

I know in the US many don't think of the risks and feed scraps. But I've been on a UK forum where many European countries it is actually illegal for them to feed their pigs anything from the kitchen. 
=/
I feed mine scraps.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Talk to the folks that got sick from touching a pig at a county fair. If you can get sick from a pig, you can make a pig sick. I think the term is zooalogical diseases. Pigs are more like humans than other livestock.


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## springvalley (Jun 23, 2009)

haypoint said:


> Talk to the folks that got sick from touching a pig at a county fair. If you can get sick from a pig, you can make a pig sick. I think the term is zooalogical diseases. Pigs are more like humans than other livestock.


People that get sick from fair animals, more than likely are picking up fecal matter and then not washing their hands before they eat their lunch. I still think that is why farm kids are so healthy, they play around the farm all the time and pick up tons of differant germs and build up an resistance to many, many things. We know a family that are germafobes, always washing with anti bacterial soap, wet wipes and such, and the kids are allways sick. > Thanks Marc


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## bruceki (Nov 16, 2009)

The big thing that the government is concerned about you feeding to your pigs is meat, or anything that has come into contact with meat. 

If you're going to feed scraps to pigs, vegetables and fruits are usually OK in most states - check with your local department of ag as to licensing and legality - but if your food contains meat or is mixed loads, you'll have to cook it prior to feeding it to pigs. The federal regs are pretty specific about how you cook it: 212 degrees for 30 minutes, and stirred/agitated while cooking. 

That's if you're going to sell the pigs. So the fellow who worked on the farm that had 80 pigs fed scraps... probably not legal -- if they'd been caught there would have been some issues. 

The issue with meat comes from concern about foot-and-mouth disease. If you want the background for all of this, I wrote it up on my blog. 

Feeding meat to pigs

Bruce / blog.bigpig.net


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

springvalley said:


> People that get sick from fair animals, more than likely are picking up fecal matter and then not washing their hands before they eat their lunch. I still think that is why farm kids are so healthy, they play around the farm all the time and pick up tons of differant germs and build up an resistance to many, many things. We know a family that are germafobes, always washing with anti bacterial soap, wet wipes and such, and the kids are allways sick. > Thanks Marc


The recent sicknesses from Fair pigs wasnât about e coli. Some contracted H1N1 from touching the pigs, some by just being near them.

What you say about salmonella and e coli germs is true. It is not true of Trichinosis and Influenza. H1N1 will make you sick no matter how deep in hog manure youâve spent your life. You can contract it from pigs and you can give it to pigs.


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## RedDirt Cowgirl (Sep 21, 2010)

Is it TB that's the concern? Tuberculosis | Iowa State University


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

secuono said:


> I know in the US many don't think of the risks and feed scraps. But I've been on a UK forum where many European countries it is actually illegal for them to feed their pigs anything from the kitchen.
> =/
> I feed mine scraps.


I don't know about other states but in Mo. it is illegal to feed table scraps and also garden veg. to pigs that is going to be sold to the public.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

gerold said:


> I don't know about other states but in Mo. it is illegal to feed table scraps and also garden veg. to pigs that is going to be sold to the public.


are you sure about the garden veggies? Corn and soybeans are garden veggies.


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

CesumPec said:


> are you sure about the garden veggies? Corn and soybeans are garden veggies.


Pig feeding update; good newspaper article | Chert Hollow Farm, LLC

The MDA in Missouri say i can't pick anything from my garden and feed it to my pigs. I plant Wheat, Rye, Sudan grass etc. in pastures and they can pasture all they want but i can't feed them from my garden. Yes this law is a bit out of line. We have been fighting this law for a couple years with not much success.

The link i posted above gives a bit of info. on this issue here in Missouri.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

That sounds like Big Ag is "protecting" the industry from small producers. For me to feed garden culls is a financial positive and a positive health issue, not a negative one. But for the mass pork producers, that isn't a financially feasible route, so they make it illegal for me. 

That is why I have been reluctant to join farm advocacy groups, because I fear I'm going to be helping the 10K+ producers at the expense of people like our own Walter Jeffries. 

But I'm probably preaching to the choir.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

CesumPec said:


> That sounds like Big Ag is "protecting" the industry from small producers. For me to feed garden culls is a financial positive and a positive health issue, not a negative one. But for the mass pork producers, that isn't a financially feasible route, so they make it illegal for me.
> 
> That is why I have been reluctant to join farm advocacy groups, because I fear I'm going to be helping the 10K+ producers at the expense of people like our own Walter Jeffries.
> 
> But I'm probably preaching to the choir.


The production of pork from small farms is no threat to Big Ag. Our market share is just too small to be noticed.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

haypoint said:


> The production of pork from small farms is no threat to Big Ag. Our market share is just too small to be noticed.


I agree to the first sentence but disagree to the second. Lobbyists in all industries look for way to protect and promote their paymasters. Why can small farm chicken producers sell, at least in some states, 20,000 birds/year but not 50,000? It isn't an issue of safety or they wouldn't be able to do any but home use. It is probably one of the reasons raw milk sales are illegal. Big Ag has no desire for raw milk sales because their time to market is too long. 

To classify human food out of a garden as garbage is stupid gov't and no bill gets passed without comments and support from someone.


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## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Human food out of a garden not garbage? While one person may invision an arm load of freshly pulled lambsquarters as garden waste, a bucket of blue/green mold-covered 
tomatoes is another type of garden waste.

If you could have a Biologist standing between your garden and pig pen, giving a thumbs up or thumbs down on everything coming out of your garden, then there wouldn't need to be any restrictions. 

But the point is, you can feed your pigs any way you wish, but when your practices endanger the public, there are restrictions. 

Big Ag isn't pushing laws that hurt the small farmer, jst to hurt the small farmer. When folks do stuff that threatens the public's perception of their product, such as selling raw milk that makes people sick or selling Spinich that has e coli on it, the Health Department gets pushed into doing their job, insuring the food supply is safe.


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## gerold (Jul 18, 2011)

haypoint said:


> Human food out of a garden not garbage? While one person may invision an arm load of freshly pulled lambsquarters as garden waste, a bucket of blue/green mold-covered
> tomatoes is another type of garden waste.
> 
> If you could have a Biologist standing between your garden and pig pen, giving a thumbs up or thumbs down on everything coming out of your garden, then there wouldn't need to be any restrictions.
> ...


I have visited a few farm factories. Some are very helpful and other don't want you on their property. I have seem moldy comm. feed fed to pigs in these places. I have seen pigs covered with shi. I have yet to see one farm factory as clean or healthy as my pig operation. 
I have talked to the top vet's in charge of Missouri farm operations. They do not want to talk to small farmers at all. They do inspect these big farm factories but they let the owners know when they will be there to inspect. A couple Vet's came to my farm after i complained about big factory operators in the North of Missouri. They didn't let me know they were coming. Anyway they looked my operation over and said very good. But then asked me all kinds of question where i was selling my pork. If the pigs had their shots , etc.etc. etc. I got a little ----ed and told them to leave my farm which they did. Not heard from them since. They were supposed to mail me some info. on the laws about feed for feeder pigs. Guess they were to busy to mail me the info. LOL.


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## CesumPec (May 20, 2011)

haypoint said:


> Human food out of a garden not garbage? While one person may invision an arm load of freshly pulled lambsquarters as garden waste, a bucket of blue/green mold-covered
> tomatoes is another type of garden waste.
> 
> If you could have a Biologist standing between your garden and pig pen, giving a thumbs up or thumbs down on everything coming out of your garden, then there wouldn't need to be any restrictions.
> ...


so your answer is stupid laws or an all intrusive gov't. you, sir, are a part of the problem. God save us from do-gooders and the well intentioned.


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