# Looking for a 14% Hog Feed Recipe



## bigredfeather (Apr 22, 2011)

I am looking to make a batch of 14-15% protein feed to finish my feeder hogs, but I don't have a recipe. If you have one that includes soybeans, corn, oats or barley, please share it with me.

Thanks.


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## bigredfeather (Apr 22, 2011)

I just checked the sticky, but didn't find what I wanted.


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## Pig in a poke (Mar 27, 2013)

Before we sold our adult sow and boar, we fed them a pellet milled for horses that is 14% protein. The label ingredients read:
"wheat middlings, rice hulls, dried distillers grains, alfalfa meal, stabilized rice bran, soy hulls, soy bean meal,calcium carbonate, soy oil, salt, ground rice hulls, vitamin E supplement, ground limestone, Iron amino acid complex, copper suflate, magnesium oxide, zinc sulfate, ferrous sulfate, zinc oxide, niacin, yeast culture, mineral oil... [several other vitamins and minerals], folic acid, biotin."

However, the nutritional analysis label for this feed does not mention Lysine, so I have not fed it to the feeders. I would not know how to measure if this feed or a home-made feed would provide enough lysine for growing pigs. That has been my obstacle in choosing an appropriate feed that is not the typical corn- and soy-centered pig feed. 

Hope others can offer some input on feed recipes.


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## bigredfeather (Apr 22, 2011)

Thanks Pig in a Poke.

I did some figuring and came up with this:
50% Corn
30% Barley
18% Full fat roasted soybeans
2% mineral
When I run the protein numbers, I come up with about 14%.

Thoughts? Does it need Lysine?


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

Yes.
Will they eat alfalfa hay?


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## bigredfeather (Apr 22, 2011)

Alfalfa - I would think they would. They eat the heck out of the barley fodder I feed them. Is alfalfa high in Lysine? That would make sense. My broiler feed recipe calls for alfalfa (which I found odd), but doesn't have any added amino acids. 

As far as the ration, what if I lowered the inclusion of the barley to 15% and then added 15% spelt back in?


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## bigredfeather (Apr 22, 2011)

Anyone?


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## o&itw (Dec 19, 2008)

The alfalfa will provide the lysine, and some other things that grain tends to be short on while still haveing a good protein, calcium and phosphorus.

Spelt has a bit more protein on average than barley, but I am not sure how it would fit with the rest of the mix.

I used to have a book that would help one calculate the necessary mixtures of certain feedstuffs to balance a diet, but no longer have it. There are software products out there now, but I am not familiar with any of them.

I would think that if you balance your protein and carbs, that the grains in conjunction with alafalfa would provide most of what you need. I am not a swine nutritionalist, so I can not offer this as professional advice.

extra milk, eggs, gardern scraps etc. would help to provide some of the micro nutrients that are needed.

In my experience, hogs seem to be more tolerant of a less than perfect diet than most animals.


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## Pig in a poke (Mar 27, 2013)

I read that alfalfa is not recommended for growing pigs because of saponins and tannins, which reduce growth rate. 

I fed the adult pigs an alfalfa-oat pellet for a while, but they ignored the straight alfalfa pellets I feed to my horses.


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## Lazy J (Jan 2, 2008)

BRF:

My computer decided to take a vacation otherwise I could use my formulation software to make you a custom rations using your ingredients.

The caution with using plant proteins is that they are low in certain essential amino acids needed by the pig for growth. In addition, adding a higher fiber ingredient such as alfalfa meal bulks up the ration and may limit growth by reducing feed intake.

Jim


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## HardBall (Dec 23, 2010)

You should be able to balance a ration for lysine using soybean meal and a grain (corn, barley, etc.) if you decide to use a feed concentrate; however, if you wish to go with just a vitamin/mineral pack, you can buy L-Lysine which is artificial Lysine and add that to your blend.


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## bigredfeather (Apr 22, 2011)

I've been doing as much reading on this as I can find and here is what I came up with. I need to get the corn, and I'll be grinding mixing this weekend.
55% Corn
15% Full Fat Roasted Soybeans
5% Barley
5% oats
18% Spelt
2% 44/35 premix

Feedback?

I found a source for spelt from a nearby farmer. The price is right, and after reading up on spelt, it seems to be a great feed ingredient, especially for pigs and chickens, as it carries more Lysine than other grains. I'm obviously not a feed ration expert, but it seems like a good idea to have several different types of grain in a ration to make it diverse. My math says this should be a little over 15% protein.
I curious as to why there isn't more spelt grown in the US.
If I wanted, I could use blue corn in this ration instead of regular corn. I've read that is contains higher levels of Lysine, but I think I will save the blue corn for my next batch of hogs which will be Large Black/Red Waddle crosses. I wish I would have done them this time instead of these white things I have now. They are like the Cornish Cross of pigs.


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## HerseyMI (Jul 22, 2012)

Corn: 68.75%
Soybean: 9.375%
Oats, wheat & mollasses: 6.25% Each
Vitamin trace mineral mix: 3.125%

Grind & Mix

14.57% protein


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## lrd3 (Jun 14, 2013)

100 lbs soy meal
700 lbs corn
salt & mineral to taste 
800 lbs feed


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