# Can pigs eat potato peelings?



## Mainelyhappy

We peeled about 25 pounds of spuds for Thanksgiving, and have a good sized pile of peels. Can I feed these to the pigs or is there something bad about peels? 
Thank you in advance, and happy Thanksgiving! 

Daryl in Maine


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## bonnie in indiana

You are not supposed to eat raw potatoes-humans or animals. BUT if you cook them, both hogs and chickens will eat'em up. I think there is somekind of acid in the potato.


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## Mainelyhappy

Thank you! 
Daryl and the pigs


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## Marshloft

I guess no one has heard about all the good stuff that is between the skin and the potatoe that gets thrown away.
The hogs get the better end of that deal.


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## Fat Man

Potato skins are fine as animal feed. Potatoes are in the nightshade family and the skins can contain a small amount of toxin. You'd have to eat a boat load for there to be any effect. Raw potato starch is difficult to digest so cooking helps that. I just wouldn't make them a huge portion of their diet.


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## Aghoney

We blanch potato peels in boiling water before using them as feed. Today we made pasta, and after draining it we took the pot off the heat and added the saved peels (that we keep in a ziplock bag in the fridge) to the still-boiling-hot water. Few minutes later we drained the peels and added them to the pig food bowl.


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## dkhern

never had a problem feedig to pig or chicken just saqying


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## highlands

Yes you can feed potato skins to the pigs. Ours are not fond of raw potatoes but after they freeze and thaw the pigs do like them. They also like them cooked but I rarely do that. Onions are the same.


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## oregon woodsmok

Don't feed any places on the skin where the skin is green. Other than that, the pigs will digest the peelings a lot better if the peelings are cooked.

The vitamins in potatoes are located in the skin, so that is the healthiest part of the potato.


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## Copperhead

You don't eat the peelings with the mashed taters? :frypan:

Properly done, they're the tater version of "dirty rice"!


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## Joey Wahoo

We fed ours potato peelings with no problem, although never in huge quantities. The are rooting animals by nature.


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## highlands

oregon woodsmok said:


> Don't feed any places on the skin where the skin is green.


I've heard this many times. So two days ago we did an experiment. My wife cooked up a batch of very green potatoes. She, one of our sons and our daughter at the green potatoes (boiled). Our other son and I abstained. And the results? We all felt fine since. So apparently those very green potatoes were not a problem. Makes me wonder if this is more of a myth than anything else. There are a lot of things that are called poisonous that you have to eat in huge quantities to have any problem.


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## simi-steading

You don't want to eat the green parts raw.. you can eat them cooked though. It removes the toxins..


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## rockhound

Green parts of potatoes DO CONTAIN SOLANINE- a known poison. Because you fed it to your kids and they didn't die only proves you're a little less than cautious, to say the least. I'd never feed my young anything that even MIGHT be bad for them.


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## highlands

That is my thinking too, that the cooking may help. I know it contains Solanine. The question is how much and how toxic along with what is your tolerance. We eat lots of toxic things. Hot peppers are an example. Eat too much of them and it will do bad things to you. My point was that the small amount we normally eat is not a worry.

And you DO feed your kids things that might be bad for them. And you let them breath polluted air, drink water that is less than pure, etc. That's the reality of life.

By the way, no I didn't feed them the green potatoes. They had already eaten them by the time the potatoes go around to me and I noticed that they were green. My wife, who had cooked them was not concerned and she was proven right. Relax.


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## Steve L.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solanine



> When potato tubers are exposed to light, they turn green and increase glycoalkaloid production. This is a natural defense to help prevent the uncovered tuber from being eaten. The green colour is from chlorophyll, and is itself harmless. However, it is an indication that increased level of solanine and chaconine may be present.
> 
> Some diseases, such as late blight, can dramatically increase the levels of glycoalkaloids present in potatoes. Mechanically damaged potatoes also produce increased levels of glycoalkaloids. This is believed to be a natural reaction of the plant in response to disease and damage.
> 
> In potato tubers, 30&#8211;80% of the solanine develops in and close to the skin.
> 
> *Showing green under the skin strongly suggests solanine build-up in potatoes, although each process can occur without the other. A bitter taste in a potato is another, potentially more reliable indicator of toxicity*.
> 
> Because of the bitter taste and appearance of such potatoes, solanine poisoning is rare outside conditions of food shortage. The symptoms are mainly vomiting and diarrhea, and the condition may be misdiagnosed as gastroenteritis. Most potato poisoning victims recover fully, although fatalities are known, especially when victims are undernourished or do not receive suitable treatment.[6] Fatalities are also known from solanine poisoning from other plants in the nightshade family, such as the berries of Solanum dulcamara (woody nightshade).[7]
> 
> The United States National Institutes of Health's information on solanine says to never eat potatoes that are green below the skin.
> 
> Deep frying potatoes at 170Â°C (306Â°F) is known to effectively lower glycoalkaloid levels (because they move into the frying fat), whereas microwaving is only somewhat effective, freeze drying or dehydration has little effect, and *boiling has no effect*.[8]


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## Hairsheep

I have NEVER fed my pigs green potato peelings...Brown ones, plaenty of of times, uncooked!
They loved them!


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