http://thekuhnfamily.tripod.com/our-pastured-pigs.html

I got a lot of info. on raising pasture pigs from the above link.

I do feed a little grain mostly what i raise myself. In winter they love to eat a lot of hay. In summer and winter they are on pasture. However they do have a lot of acorn and nuts they feed on in the winter in the woods. My pigs do get fat and weight around 400 lbs. plus at 12 mos.

My gilt is 1/2 American guinea hog so I don't think she'll pass 300 pounds at full maturity. That probably slows the growth weight too, but I'm okay with that since I prefer smaller than hippo size!:D

OK, but it is close. Can I have $5000? :nanner:

Would you take a pig instead. :)

Pastured pigs
 

There's been talk for years about how you can raise pigs on pasture alone. The trouble with this theory is that no one is doing that right now on a commercial basis, and certainly not with production that would suit your typical retail market.

Even people who have claimed to do this in the past are now producing pigs with feedings of food waste -- in one case the fellow is feeding thousands of pounds of butter, cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream and other dairy waste, and in addition to these solids is providing thousands of gallons of whey, a byproduct of cheese production, and bread and other items as they become avaiable to him. Funny, that's exactly what I do, too. and in fact, it's what most small pig farmers do.

Yes, he may keep his pigs outdoors, but if you look at the calories that the pigs use to put weight on, I think you'll agree that butter is a lot better than meagre greens.

Pigs can grow and thrive without supplemental feeding; as pointed out here that happens all the time in the south; texas, alabama, lousiana, florida... basically any warmer weather state. Each feral pig is usually roaming an area measured in acres per pig - 5 acres per pig, 10, 20, whatever. This sort of growth doesn't happen in the mountains of new york, or maine, or any other mountanous eastern state and it certainly doesn't happen on very thin, rocky soil. you have to have some soil to grow the crops to get the best fodder for any animal, pigs included. It usually happens in areas where there are farms growing nutrious crops on good soil, or with fertilizer or irrigation or both, with traditional or no-till tillage -- you can absolutely plant crops which will provide enough nutrition for a pig to thrive on. But the claim isn't that you can plant crops and feed your own pig -- the claim is that you can put standard farm pigs on meagre soil at a stocking rate between 10 and 20 pigs an acre and have them reach slaughter weight in 6 to 8 months - maybe throw them 10lbs of dry hay a week. I don't think it's possible.

Specifically I don't think that it's possible to grow pigs to commercial weight on mountain pastures in the timeframe that most farmers would consider acceptable, or with carcass characteristics that would suit most american consumers.

The American guinea Hog (AGH) and KuneKune can fatten quite well with minimal extra feed, but that's not what we are talking about here - we're talking standard size farm pigs and standard slaughter weights and standard growout times.

If you think you can grow pigs under the conditions that have been promoted, PM me. Look, if we can come up with a way to grow pigs without supplmental feed we'll all be rich. Think of the billions of pounds of feed that are being used now to grow pigs.

HAPPILY!!! :dance:

My DW would prefer a GOS to match the little guy in the photo. I'll let the mailman know to expect a large, angry, and hungry package in the next few days. :whistle:

My Old Spot piglets look like Hereford pigs. They are Red with white feet and have tiny black spots on them.
Mother Sow is white/black spots. Boar Red/white face and feet.
Got 5 now. 4 piglets were sold for $200 ea.

my kunekune is black/white spots; but he doesn't bark.:D

grazing Triticale
 

Have any of you had experience with grazing Triticale? I noticed a couple pages back that it was discussed as part of a feed but didn't see anything on grazing it. I came across two articles in the past that stated that it wasn't very palatable and the hogs wouldn't touch it (I can't find the bookmark to either article at the moment) so I was wondering if anyone has experience with it, good or bad. The nutrient profile seems great.

I planted Triticale last year in a couple places with different seed. Some with Oats and some mix with grasses.

The pigs didn't touch the Triticale that i could tell. I just plowed it under and will replant with other things in that area in the spring.

I've never tried the Triticale although we have something growing in some of our fields that looks like it. I thought it was wheat. Not a large amount - in a patch. The pigs like it fine. Pigs will walk along munching seed heads of lots of different things. Some of that seed passes through them and gets planted, some of it they digest. This is natures way of sowing seeds. Most of what our pigs eat is pasture. See this link for details and follow the feed links for details:

http://SugarMtnFarm.com/pigs

Managed rotational grazing is key. Good pasture is important and pasture is not lawn. Good pig genetics makes a world of difference. Where one person fails with confinement style grain fed hog genetics another person can succeed with quality pastured pig genetics on the same pastures. This is why it's a good idea to get livestock from someone who is raising them the way you want to raise them so you'll get a leg up on the genetics. That's a big part of the origin of the whole idea behind breeding registries. It's a system. There are many ways to succeed. Even more ways to fail. :)

-Walter

I'd like to suggest winter rye. It is a better and hardier nutrient scavenger and is quite palatable in my grazing experience. I have found that pigs also like it. Rye gives you a grazing grass, the seed heads and also reseeds very easily. It is an annual and is easy to eliminate or at least control if you want to plant a former feed area.

I couldn't agree more. Plant winter rye in mid to late fall, then brassicas and legumes in spring. This allows me to graze from late April to November/December up here.

Effect of pasture on hog nutrition
 

Study published yesterday on pastured hogs. over 100 farms contacted, and covers a variety of different operations. It's about 60 pages long, I'll cut to the chase:

The best pastures out there, planted with species that provide palatable and attractive forage for pigs, provide about 25% of the total calorie needs during the growing season...at best. Poor pastures with thin soil or short growing seasons provide less nutrition.

The study also cites the problem that many pastured pork producers face; the perception by the customer that their pigs are solely or mostly grass or pasture fed. this study points out that mono-gastric (single stomach) animals, like pigs, cannot get their required nutrition from most pastures, certainly not at 5 to 10 pigs an acre.

This study coincides with my own experience (and probably with the experience of every other farmer here) that if you're growing pigs outdoors you're feeding them something else in addition to the plants/forage they get, particularly if your stocking at numbers I've seen mentioned here - 5 to 10 pigs an acre.

you'll find the study linked here

Wow - just wow. Do you seriously think that "study" is science that proves pigs can't be raised on pasture? I didn't read every word of it, but where I did see the 25% number, it was citing a Storey publication, with no science to back up the number or explanation of how it was determined. I also didn't see anything about stocking density per acre.

I read fast. The paper is about some of the issues and challenges faced by the small scale pastured pork producer. I skipped sections on marketing, difficulty finding USDA butchers, and such that I didn't think were relevant to proving your bolded words. Did I miss something or are you just spinning one sentence in a 60 page doc to justify your bias?

This paper is not science but more of a journalistic reporting on TWENTY pork producers. I read lots of scientific reports published by universities of Florida, Ohio State, Oregon, Arkansas and they look nothing like what you have linked. Real science shows the results of measured, detailed, audited experiments.

There was one UF paper I found particularly valuable that was the result of numerous experiments. They took swine and bovine and did a comparison of growth rates on a standard feedlot corn/soy/supplement ration and then compared it to other diets where experiments had shown what percentage of the conventional diet could be replaced with alternative feeds and still maintain similar growth rates and nutrition. Because it was Florida, they compared citrus pulp, peanuts, and other feeds. As I recall, they found citrus pulp could replace 60 - 80% of the corn/soy. If you could produce science such as that, you would be able to show facts and not opinions about how much caloric intake pastures can replace for swine.

Obviously 100% pastured pigs is possible, or else pigs would not have survived long enough to be domesticated and wild pigs would go extinct. What is in that viable pig pasture and how much pasture per pig is the question. Pastures would have to be designed with pig needs in mind, planted with mast producing trees, legumes, berries, places for rodents and insects to nest, places for mushrooms to grow, etc...

I think they could expand a lot more on this resource, but it's somewhat interesting: http://www.mast-producing-trees.org/...and-livestock/

I did read the whole report. One can gain a little from the report. However it is far from correct on most of the items in the report. 20 farmers did help with the report but how many of them know what real pasture on good land is like? Over 100 farmers contacted but only 20 helped a little bit on this report.

Not to discredit the lady making the report but sitting at a desk and copying what 20 farmers say about this type of farming is a bit questionable. Not one mention of how the pasture pork taste compared to factory raised pigs. This report really has its problems.

The report spends a lot of time saying that there is no consensus or legal definition of what pastured pork means. As my personal bias is always against more gov't, I'm not keen on yet more bureaucrats creating and enforcing regs the way "organic" or "free range" has been done. However, if the gov't did so, it might make part of this debate moot.

It seems to me that Bruceki doesn't like the term pastured pork if people are using it to imply 100% grass fed as if pig = beef. I can understand that. I think all of us agree that swine are omnivores and need a more diverse diet to grow healthy and at acceptable rates and that we all might define pastured in various ways and degress. In my mind, pastured pork means more of a style and system of raising pigs including a diverse diet, exercise, pig choice in farrowing, etc. Though I understand others might say pastured pork could include farrowing crates and then a transfer to open pasture. With no official definition of pastured pork, we can all be right and wrong or a little bit of each.

Salatin would say pasturing is in terms of allowing the pigs to express their pig-ness, It's opposite would be confinement and a near 100% corn/soy/supplement diet.

:facepalm: Study? It's a master's thesis for crying out loud. Do you know what a master's thesis is? In this case, it's a term paper written as a partial degree requirement for a student in the food studies dept..

And Deeke is right. No citation is given for the percentage of diet derived from pasture except from a generic "how-to" guide to raising livestock book. I can cite several books written at the turn of the last century that explains how to raise pigs on pasture alone. Is this a respected study because it agrees with your postulation? And since when does pasture equate to grass? My hog pastures are mostly brassicas and legumes. Heck, my cattle pastures are only about 50% grass.

I raise pigs on pasture. I only grain for about a week at weaning. I do supplement my pigs, especially in the winter, with dairy and bread as well as quality hay. Interestingly, my average gain in the spring, summer and fall is about 50% higher than the total supplement ration during those months. That indicates that even if the caloric absorption and conversion of the supplements is 100% (not even close, realistically more like 20%), then at least one third is acquired elsewhere...where would that be from?

I could do an experiment and separate and grow some hogs away from my other hogs and raise them without the benefit of the free dairy and bread that I have at my disposal. Would they grow as fast? Nope. Would they grow only 20% as fast as those that have the benefit of free supplement? Hardly. By your reasoning, if it takes 8 months for me to reach the 300-350# minimum that my customers are accustomed, it will take 40 months on pasture/hay alone to reach the same weight.

Additionally, to me, pasture is much more than a food source. It is fresh air, sunshine, exercise, and the ability for a hog to be a hog. While I support a farmer's right to raise pigs tail deep in their own filth inside a hog house, I prefer a different way. I'm not sure why people feel threatened by that.

Yes i did get the impress that the reporter placed to much important for the government to get more into the reg. of the farmers growing pasture pork. This is what i am trying to avoid. Keeping government out of my business. When growing up most farmers knew what pasture pork was and the best way to manage it. When young our feeder pigs lived mostly in the woods and followed the acorn crop up to the time they were shipped. We did feed them a little whole corn in the woods to keep track of them. That made for good taste and solid but health fat porkers.

As for as our own butcher hogs. We penned them up after they were about 200 pounds and let them eat all the whole corn they could consume till weigh was 400-600 lbs. Best pork in the world. :) Best meat we ever had was a 1000 lb. duroc boar.

Could you list some?

Anyone like Morrison Feeds and Feeding? c. 1948

By the way you can get that e-book for free: https://books.google.com/books?id=SVgaAAAAIAAJ

"Hogs" by A.J. Lovejoy 1919

"Success with Hogs" by Charles Dawson 1919

Dawson discusses finishing on pasture alone, but also gives options of grain feeding or "hogging down" on grain crop residues.

You've hit the nail on the head. Pasture is not about feeding pigs only grass and pastures are not just grass. Occasionally someone will fixate on that and make a claim that a pig can't be claimed to be pastured if it ate anything other than grass. The reality, as you so nicely put it, is that pastured pigs is about a lot more than just grass. There are many ways to skin a cat and likewise, many ways to pasture a pig. The best thing for consumers to do is know their farmer.

Keep on pasturing!

-Walter

Added links to free e-books.

I'm constantly inviting my customers to come inspect the farm, very few actually do.

No, {referencing now deleted post above} not on hay alone. See http://SugarMtnFarm.com/pigs and follow the feed links. Hay alone is low in calories and lysine. I have raised pigs on _just_ pasture. But they take longer to get to market weight and are leaner. See the article at the link above for details.

-Walter

Interesting that my pigs will barely eat raw cabbages I have grown for them; beets are a whole different deal; they devour them like candy; I grew two good sized patches and have pulled a bunch and it looks like a bloody mess when they are chomping and red beet juice is flying! I have about 15-20 heads of cabbage left so I'm going to steam several at a time cause they eat them cooked. My chickens are laying 2-3 eggs a day now so they are going to get a couple of hard boiled eggs now too. Hoping that my gilt is pregnant, I want to feed her well!

I don't know if this has been mentioned already, but the Livestock Conservancy recommends some books/pamphlets on swine pasture:

http://www.livestockconservancy.org/...tage-swine-faq

The LC is promoting missinformation. They claim that a heritage breed is by definition a US breed and an endangered breed. Bad definition. Heritage has a specific meaning:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/heritage

If they want to use other adjectives they should say something like "Endangered US Heritage Breed" but trying to change the meaning of the word is fundamentally dishonest of the LC.

For example: Yorkshire are one of the _oldest_ breeds and are definitely a heritage breed but they are not endangered because they are so good, so successful. Yorkshire is a Heritage Breed. Just not endangered.

There are other heritage breeds that aren't in the USA but are still heritage breeds. The LC's being nationalistic on that one.

The LC should stop being so myopic because they're confusing people.

Anything the LC says I would take with ten grains of salt.

Kentucky 31 fescue-endophyte infected
 

Questions for you all on K-31 fescue. This stuff is everywhere around here. No matter where I start my operation, I am sure to encounter it.

1. Is it palatable? Assuming it is part of a grass/legume mixture, will hogs eat it?

2. If the answer to #1 is yes, are there toxicity issues with hogs like there is with cattle? How about causing an off flavor of meat? This seems to be a fairly significant issue with cattle.

3. Have any of you successfully rid yourself of it? If so, by what means (tillage, chemicals, etc)? I attempted to till up a small area of it last year in order to plant a deer plot. I hit it with a disk multiple times, once a week, for a month in the fall. Believe it or not, it came back stronger in the spring and completely shut out what I had broadcast seeded.


Another (off topic) reason I ask is that I can find fescue bales in this area for right around the same price as straw (basically due to supply and demand, not much straw being put up in my immediate area) so if there are no issues with it, I may consider it for bedding.

I avoid planting fescue due to the toxicity at stress. My understanding is there is a variety called Patriot (?) that does not have the toxicity.

-Walter

I have planted lots of K-32. It is very good for cattle and hogs. Grows really good here in Mo. It is best to mix 4or5 other grasses with it. Clover etc. If you have other grasses mixed with it makes it better for Hogs and Cattle. It will come back year after year and grow just about all year. Makes for a very good winter pasture for the Hogs.

Sounds like you have a very good stand of it that you run the disk over. When you run the disk over it before a rain just plant other grasses over Best to plant K32 to replace the k31. K32 is Endophyte free.

Have used fescue for years no off flavor at all with cattle or hogs. Fescue has over the years replaced most of the older grasses for pasture as it is easy to grow and grows fast and is good for the livestock.

I use a mix of hay with fescue being the main one for bedding. The pigs love it and eat the seeds off it in the winter.

Soil ph 6.0-7.0

For butcher hogs for my own use i pen the hog up for 45 days before butchering.
Feed it all the ground corn it can eat 24/7 and fresh water each day. No pasture,No Soy.
Makes for good tasting meat and lots of good tasting fat to flavor the meat.

There are a few other endophyte free varieties now being used in this area as well, such as K-32 that Gerold mentioned below. I think the earlier endophyte-free varieties had persistence and drought issues so they weren't used much in the past. My main concern is dealing with existing K-31 if I happen to graze a field road, water way, etc.


Glad to hear that you have had success with the K-32. A few neighbors have used MFA's "Select Tall Fescue" and it looks like they have decent stands where the grass got thin a few years ago.

Clarify one thing for me-you have had success doing a light tilling of K-31 and having K-32 take over without any type of chemical treatment on the K-31? Just want to clarify that since my tillage experiment clearly didn't work! Mine could have been due to other factors of course-rain, what I planted behind it, etc

Also glad to hear about no off flavors. I'm often wondering if that is an over-stated issue when it comes to grass fed/finished cattle but that is certainly a topic for a different thread (I better pop over to the cattle forum and see if it has been discussed)

Not to take this thread off topic too much, but do you pen and grain feed your hogs that you take to market or do they pasture all the way to the locker?

Thanks,

Mid-MO

I sell very few butcher hogs. The ones i do sell are the ones that the 4H and FFA kids don't take. I sell quite a few roaster hogs and hogs under 150 lbs. that people buy to raise themselves. Almost all my hogs are raised on pasture plus some grain. The only ones i pen up and feed out with corn is the ones i butcher for myself and extended family that do their own butchering.

I do sell a lot of breeding stock. The breeding stock is what pays the bills. :)
My breeding stock sell for a very good price. My breeding stock gets special feed, 18 percent protein same as all my little weaned piglets. They are on pasture also but have their own pasture.

O.T.
I have oldspot/hereford cross piglets that are very special that are not for sell yet. This is a cross that i think will be nice. See what happens in a few mos. with this cross. So far they look good.

Thanks again for the info on the grasses.

Curious to hear more about your breeding stock. I'll be in touch as things progress with my operation.