Just wanted to pass this along: In one of my references there is an item on a farmer who fattened out hogs in a lot. He noticed on moonlite nights they would get up to feed during the night. He installed a light over the feeder with a timer to come on for something like 10-11 PM and 1-3 AM. When it came on the hogs would come to the feeder, top off and then go back to sleep. He reported increased daily weight gain. Anyone have an experience with something like this? Ken Scharabok
Why not leave a little light on all night and avoid crowds around the feeder? You would have to furnish more feed, and they're already eating us out of the house and home. When I was a kid we had a neighbor who never wormed his pigs and feed them nothing but ear corn sparingly. It took his hogs a year to get up to 200 lb. The neighbor men would make remarks about his aging pigs, and he'd always come back with, "No hurry. What's time to a hog?"
When my husband raised a lot of hogs, they ate all night long. Moon, no moon, didn't matter. He had those hog feeders with the lid they had to raise and all night long you would hear the sound of the lids thumping back down. There was a yard light out there, but I don't think much light got back to the hog pens. Jena
I have vague memories of hearing about this during hot weather. Apparently pigs don't eat well during really hot weather, any more than people do. Somebody started putting up a light so they would eat during the cool of the night.
You need to listen to the lids of self feeders banging all night long to get an idea about what pigs do in the dark.
