# Fattening on eggs and goats milk, what else?



## rittert3 (Jul 26, 2011)

If I were to try to fatten a couple hog on eggs and goats milk how much of each should they be fed per head per day and what else and how much would they need in order to be healthy?


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## jhm47 (Jul 27, 2011)

There's not a lot of dry matter in eggs and goat's milk, so you'd have to feed a LOT of it.  I'd also self-feed a good commercial hog ration, and let them eat as much milk and eggs as they want.  They will eat what's necessary and pretty well regulate their diets by themselves.


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## freemotion (Jul 27, 2011)

Are you planning on containing them in a pen or putting them on pasture?  I'm a big fan of variety in the diet.  You can soak grains in that milk and sour it for a bit and they'll really like it.  Plenty of fresh veggies/grass/clover will round out their diet.  If you can get your hands on restaurant prep scraps and bread that is past the sell-by date you could have free bacon.  Cook those eggs, though.  I also add pumpkins and ears of corn unhusked in the fall when the farm next door is selling fall decorating stuff (they sell corn stalks and strip the ears off so racoons don't mess up their displays at night...they throw them on the field and I pick them up.)  I put an ad on craigslist and picked up acorns that people had raked up in the suburbs here.  Acorn-finished pork is a rare and expensive delicacy and we pigged out on it.   For almost no investment.

Lots of details as to how I fed my hogs on my pig journal last year and this year on the sister site, sufficientself, and ohiofarmgirl has links to her blog in all her posts and she details how she fattens up her bacon on that blog.


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## rittert3 (Jul 30, 2011)

Wanted to stay away from commercial mix and they will be pen fed. I can give them some prep waste from my own kitchen and spit/over ripe vegtables and plants in the fall from my own garden as well as some baged grain.
Are tomatoes ok, or to acidic and plants to grisley? I only plan on feeding out 2 or 3 head a year so quanities should stay reasonable. Also if I'm reading right the freash raw eggs are not ok to feed? is that right freemotion? What about losses in my layer flock? I've heard of hogs eating fresh killed jack rabbits. I basically want them to be as much of a waste disposal as possible giving me cheap pork as a result and I am willing to give them up to 2 lbs a day of cracked corn to round it out it that will work.


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## ohiofarmgirl (Jul 30, 2011)

> Also if I'm reading right the freash raw eggs are not ok to feed?


YES thats right - do not feed raw eggs. sure they will eat them - but they have a protein inhibitor so you'd just be working against yourself. 

i'm feeding our two hogs on corn, goat milk, eggs, and they are on pasture. they are doing GREAT - actually well ahead of schedule.  if you want to stay away from bagged feed (and JHM is just right - you can do just fine on hog ration) then you can add protein with some calf manna to their grain/corn/wheat/whatever. using alternative feed like Free and i do produce a great table hog - it might take a little longer than just bagged food, but we think the results are spectacular. 

we feed a ton of garden stuff, pumpkins are great - they are also a natural wormer, fruit, weeds, hay etc. and yep you can give them table scraps - i'm about to walks some stuff down from doing some kitchen prep right now.  

if the pigs are pasture they'll do a great job of rooting and clear cutting - right now ours are getting rid of a big patch of poison ivy (no it doesnt hurt them). we also made friends with people who have farm stands and they give us a ton of stuff for the pigs. basically pigs will eat anything they can smell - and as long as they are growing at a consistent rate then you're good. the only thing we dont feed our pigs is processed foods - but we dont each much of that ourselves so we dont have it to give.

many people will advise you NOT to feed meat. of course thats totally up to you - if the pigs figure out that chickens taste like.. well... chicken they might start going after them if the hens get into their pen. another reason not to feed meat is that pigs might figure out you are made out of meat..and then... well. its all down hill from there. but everyone has a different view on that. 
here's what i know about feeding pigs out on the cheap . we've had great success with how we raise hogs for our table. 

good luck!


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## freemotion (Jul 30, 2011)

Unless you grow ALL your own food for a large family, you will not likely have enough scraps from your garden to grow out 2-3 hogs.  It will help, but not enough.  You can, however, feed them for free or nearly so if you are creative, put the word out, and make it a habit to go collect stuff from other sources.

Easier to buy hog pellets?  Sure.  But it is even easier to just go to the grocery store and buy pork on foam trays wrapped in plastic....most of us who go through the trouble do so because we want something we can't get in the store....good, healthy meat raised without antibiotics and cruelty.  I totally agree with you.

Talk to any area restaurants, grocery stores (they have liability issues so are tough to get stuff from now), bakeries, wholesale distributors, dairies, local gardeners, landscapers (acorns), local farmstand-type farmers, etc.  Put ads on your local craigslist in the farm&garden section.  Be faithful about picking stuff up once you've obligated yourself, and show lots of appreciation.

Last year a craigslist appeal for acorns netted about 3/4 - 1 ton of acorns, and about 4-500 lbs were delivered and dumped in my field by a landscaper!  I just piled them up and let the pigs eat free-choice, so storage and mold were not an issue.  There were enough leftovers this spring to start this year's pigs, so you'd better believe that my goal is 2-3 tons this fall since we doubled the number of pigs we raise from 2 to 4.

This year I got 48 boxes of prepper canned goods, each box containing six LARGE cans of food, mostly powdered milk.  I also got 55 pails of organic wheat, each with 45 lbs of premium wheat for grinding into flour.  All for free.

I just found a wholesale distributor of bread that lets me come fill my car for free.  Got about 250 lbs last Tuesday and hope to get even more this coming Tuesday.

My goats got into my tomato garden last summer and destroyed my crop.  I dumped 18 five gallon pails of broken tomatoes into the pig pasture.  They ignored them until they liquified, then they snarfed them down.  The farmer next door dumped buckets of tomatoes and he and I literally dumped tons of pumpkins and squashes over the fence.  They immediately ate the seeds, then waited for the rest of the veggies to liquify before eating them.

We have a bagging mower and so does our neighbor.  All chemical-free clippings are used....he parks his wheelbarrow on our driveway and I return it when empty.  If I am not mulching my gardens with it, I am feeding it to the pigs and chicks.  Clippings should be fed fresh, though.  When their pasture is depleted, I scythe grass/clover for them daily.

A local restaurant calls us after banquets about once a week with boxes and pails of leftover salad, peelings, salmon, rolls, cakes, sauces and soups.  Pig heaven!

The guy I got my weaners from last year raises his breeding hogs on bread from an organic bakery and milk from an organic dairy, along with rotated pasture, acorns, other stuff.

Yes, cook those eggs.  I just throw poopy eggs in a pot and boil them, cool them, and toss them to the pigs shell and all.

I think I gave you a few ideas to start with!


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## Ms. Research (Jul 30, 2011)

ohiofarmgirl said:
			
		

> > Also if I'm reading right the freash raw eggs are not ok to feed?
> 
> 
> YES thats right - do not feed raw eggs. sure they will eat them - but they have a protein inhibitor so you'd just be working against yourself.
> ...


Sorry,  I couldn't watch the video.  But seriously I do know the real deal and as a NON-vegetarian, love good pork.   Thanks to good people like you, the pigs are given a good life with respect in exchange for our sustenance.   I truly respect and admire what you do.  

Thanks for explaining it the Real way.


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## freemotion (Jul 30, 2011)

Once when I was a kid someone gave my dad a rabbit they'd hunted.  For some reason he didn't want it...didn't trust it.  So he tossed it, whole and fresh and undressed, into the pig pen.  He says it never hit the ground! 

I give my pigs cooked meat scraps (not many), especially salmon from the restaurant, and leftover rendered fat that we aren't using.  I save all fat so after a while I have to clean out the fridge of the older jars, and the pigs get a bit a week.  They eat it like candy.

I think if you feed cooked meat they won't necessarily smell your raw meat legs and try to eat them.  That being said, I don't go in their pen.  Got a scratch while in their pasture last year that bled and the reaction of my two young pigs put some respectful fear into me.   If fencing needs fixing, we feed them LOTS and LOTS of the best food and fat and then the big guys go in and fix fencing.  While the stuffed pigs are napping.


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## freemotion (Jul 30, 2011)

Ms. Research said:
			
		

> Sorry,  I couldn't watch the video.


Give it another try, it was an article, not a video.


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## Ms. Research (Jul 30, 2011)

freemotion said:
			
		

> Ms. Research said:
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Thanks for the suggestion.  And I'm truly glad I read that informative and very entertaining article about pigs.  Learn something new every day!


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## rittert3 (Jul 30, 2011)

Well Everything look like I would be on the right track, I wouldn't be going in the pen so I think I would be ok with some occaisional raw meat, as for the rest I would suppliment with a couple coffee cans of cracked corn a day (for 2 hd) and I think I would beable to come up with enough other odds and ends to round out their diet. It dosn't sound like they are picky, would they eat vegitation that has been clipped and thrown in the pen? Did I read right that they will eat grass clipping? That would be great!! lol thanks to all that are replying


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## freemotion (Jul 31, 2011)

Variety is the key.  Throw it in and see if they eat it!  Yes, they eat grass clippings.  I'd not give the raw pork, though.


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## rittert3 (Jul 31, 2011)

understandable


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## 77Herford (Aug 23, 2011)

http://globegazette.com/news/local/...a-bf1b-11e0-8067-001cc4c002e0.html?mode=story
A cold hardy hybrid has been created.  My pigs love them.


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## kstaven (Aug 25, 2011)

Rather than using milk ... If you have a cheese operation near you get the dairy whey they usually throw out. It is high protein and the pigs will do well on it.

We mix our dairy whey into mash feed for our meat chickens also and they thrive on it.


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## 77Herford (Aug 27, 2011)

kstaven said:
			
		

> Rather than using milk ... If you have a cheese operation near you get the dairy whey they usually throw out. It is high protein and the pigs will do well on it.
> 
> We mix our dairy whey into mash feed for our meat chickens also and they thrive on it.


No WHEY....


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## JaxBirchmuck (Sep 14, 2011)

I really enjoyed this post.  We are new to pigs and have found so much information reading just this post.


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## rittert3 (Sep 14, 2011)

There is only 1 cheese opperation in range that I know of and there are large and commercial so I'm pretty sure their whey is spoken for. So this is my plan for feeding out, A base of corn and grass clipping with goat milk and eggs to suppliment. I will also throw them the garden plant when the I pull them up in the fall as well as cull chickens on occaision. Also I want to try grazing goats on a 3 acre patch of turnips and rye of they could also have the turnip bulbs when grazing is done for the year. Idealy I would like to have 1 hog to roast and 1 for the freezer each year.


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## LizFM (Nov 18, 2011)

Pigs will eat anything that doesn't eat them first 

DH grew up on a large commercial farm that (among other things) has a farrow-finish hog operation. He has seen pigs grab and eat unwary sparrows that were feeding in the feed bunk too close to them. Not an uncommon occurrence at all.When we're back for a visit and he goes out shooting pigeons in the barn at night, as someone else said 'they don't hit the ground'...he said the pigs will fight over them like candy.

I think it was a pretty well known fact that hogs were highly dangerous to children in the past before hog confinement was the norm. Remember in The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy fell into the pig pen and everybody freaked out? That's why.

They're meant to be omnivores, I wouldn't make meat their Main food but they're meant to eat it when it's available. As far as live chickens go...whether you feed them the dead ones or not, your chickens *are not* safe going in to the hog pen. Back when we farmed with DH's folks it was common to lose chickens, guineas or even turkeys that got in with the hogs.


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## kstaven (Nov 18, 2011)

rittert3 said:
			
		

> There is only 1 cheese opperation in range that I know of and there are large and commercial so I'm pretty sure their whey is spoken for. So this is my plan for feeding out, A base of corn and grass clipping with goat milk and eggs to suppliment. I will also throw them the garden plant when the I pull them up in the fall as well as cull chickens on occaision. Also I want to try grazing goats on a 3 acre patch of turnips and rye of they could also have the turnip bulbs when grazing is done for the year. Idealy I would like to have 1 hog to roast and 1 for the freezer each year.


Most cheese operations dump all the whey down the drain. So a quick call may net you a lot of free feed. Cheese curd that doesn't turn out is also a good possibility with a large operation.


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## 77Herford (Nov 18, 2011)

kstaven said:
			
		

> rittert3 said:
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NO WHEY!


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## Royd Wood (Nov 18, 2011)

whey too funny


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## animalfarm (Nov 19, 2011)

Which whey to the cheese factory. I got to get there before Royd.


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## 77Herford (Nov 19, 2011)

Today my pigs got a soup of Cabbage, Onions, Stawberries, Grapes, Mushrooms, Beef broth, Melons and Potatoes.  Plus some extra milk to wash it all down.


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## Royd Wood (Nov 19, 2011)

animalfarm said:
			
		

> Which whey to the cheese factory. I got to get there before Royd.


Whey to go 

apples and pumpkins for our guys


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## animalfarm (Nov 19, 2011)

77Herford said:
			
		

> Today my pigs got a soup of Cabbage, Onions, Stawberries, Grapes, Mushrooms, Beef broth, Melons and Potatoes.  Plus some extra milk to wash it all down.


I'm thinking that could be weirdly interesting for supper. Got any corn bread?


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## rittert3 (Nov 21, 2011)

Ok I havn't checked back in a while but to sum up my thoughts on replys- I think I want to go with the original quail (coturnix) and chicken eggs and goats milk with a mix of cracked corn and milo plus whatever scraps come up. I don't want to let any of my birds freerange so they won't beable to get in the hog pen, I will probably feed the guts, culls, and, losses to the hogs then. I'm thinking 60% Milo and 40% corn for the grain, I'm not sure yet though. I've heard that milo causes the fat to disperse more in the meat where corn forms bigger flaking. I like moderate edge fat on my meat and esspecially my pork so I figured on leaving some corn in the ration. As far as cheese plant waste, I don't want more that 6 head of hogs and want my main enterprise to be Boer, Nubian, and Savannah cross goats and want to keep several nubian nannys around for nursers anyway so if I account to feed 3 galons a day betwwen six hogs I think I can make that work. Also I'm not sure what weight I want to buy my gilts at and what weight I want to process at? I want some roasters (whole hogs), grinders (we've aquired a taste for pork burgers and I like to make 1/2pork,1/2beef snack sticks), and Hogs to get whole loins, bacon, ham, CS ribs, and boston butts out of. I really love the way that Hamps round out in the quarters for getting cuts but may buy duroc or yorks for grinding and roasting. I figured the grinders and roasters could be processed a little lighter. Thoughts?


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