Feeder pig diet.

[firebob]

RabbitGirl. Your are right about the feed and what it needs to do, but at the same time a lot of the research numbers for more of a factory farming situation.
I find there is a market for meat that is the low or zero grain, slow growth, not over crowded, no unneeded drugs, and cage free (chickens).

 

[Baymule]

I’m raising Cornish Cross meat chickens right now. I use commercial Feed, but I ferment it. I use kiefer to ferment the Feed.

 

[Ridgetop]

This was fascinating to read! At first the number of pigs gave me flashbacks to Devil Pig but reading aobut your farming style was amazing. Post more!

 

[firebob]

Ridgetop
Forget the flashbacks and come on over Thursday and Friday. I'm picking up 150ish lambs.
They all need to be be weighted, adding into the computer, band all the boys, 7 way shot, and a look over. I can get 50 to 60 lambs per load so it might take 2 days depending on how many they let me get.

 

[Baymule]

Where and how do you market your lambs and pigs?

 

[firebob]

I market lambs live to people that slaughter and package them there self. We sell them between the 130 and 160 pound mark. A lot of holidays there is a demand for the 80 to 100 pound lambs, but most people will buy what every they can get there hands on.
I'm hoping to do the same with the pigs, but this is the first year with the pigs so who knows. I do have a lot of interested people in the pigs, but it's still early. I'm planning on butchering one around the 120 pound mark to see the results and go from there. I think starting to market lighter will get more sales as it's more manageable for one person. I'm sure this fall I'll sell every one of them and the larger they are the better they will sell.
We raise around 3,000 chickens a year. We can butcher 1,000 a year in our state as long as they get picked up in 24 hours after harvest. We sell most of them live.

With a lot of the meat processing facility closed down it's hard to know when and what the new normal will be.

 

[High Desert Cowboy]

A few years back I visited a feed lot and as I was checking his feed I noticed it smelled fantastic! I asked him about it and he had a deal with a gum plant and mixed some of the residue that was left from making wintergreen gum into his cattle ration as it had some nutrients that cattle needed. He also had a deal with a cheese plant to haul off and use their excess whey and also wastage from the malt o meal and Pepperidge farms plants in his growing rations. His reasoning was people get fat of milanos, why wouldn’t cattle? He then swapped to grain for his finishing ration but it knocked a lot off his feed bill during the growing stage. Sounds like you might have something similar with a local producer. Is there anyone else that might have similar opportunities to utilize their wastage? You can get it for cheap or free (cost is you hauling it). 120 pounds seems a little small but I imagine there is probably some sort of market for it. I spent two years in Spain and it was common to see 3-4 weaner pigs wrapped together in cellophane looking like they’re asleep in the butcher shop. There’s a market for anything if you can find the right people.

 

[firebob]

When I milked cows as a teen we feed chocolate waist from Hershey and cereal waist from Post. A couple times a year we would get semi loads of citrus peals also. Larger farms work with a animal dietitian that searches for usable byproducts to cheapen the feed and increase production.

I like the clean taste of grass and silage feed animals. I think grain and some byproducts alter the taste. There is also a difference in nutritional value of animals biased off the diets. I'm OK with feeding produce to animals that can handle the type of food when the animal is still young.

 

[Ridgetop]

Ridgetop
Forget the flashbacks and come on over Thursday and Friday. I'm picking up 150ish lambs.
They all need to be be weighted, adding into the computer, band all the boys, 7 way shot, and a look over. I can get 50 to 60 lambs per load so it might take 2 days depending on how many they let me get.

Where are you located? Where do you get your lambs? You must have a lot of pasture.

There is definitely a difference in the taste sometimes. A friend bought a hog at the fair one year and complained it tasted fishy. He called the FFA instructor and the teacher told him that that student had found some cheap pig feed that contained a high percentage of fish by products. Never heard of that in feed, but that is what happened.

Milk can also take on the flavor of whatever the animal eats. Our Nubian goat milk always tasted similar to normal cow's milk except extra rich because we had them on alfalfa and dairy cow grain. Some friends grazed theirs on brush and didn't feed anything else complained that their milk sometimes had a funny taste. I told them to bring their goats in early from grazing and wait a couple hours before milking. That helped the flavor.

 

[firebob]

I'm in VA. There are 2 different farms I get my lambs from both are about 50 miles from me.
I have a bit more than 100 acres. Part is set up for green chop, part for hay, and part for silage.

Yes the feed affects the taste of an animal. Depending on the animal it can take a long time to flush a flavor out of the animals fat.