Free's 2011 pig project....free food from now on!!!!

[ohiofarmgirl]

i love that you are stalking the restaurant! whooot!

we're wrestling with the soy thing too. right now a bag of hog chow and a bag of cracked corn are about the same cost. its NUTS. i'm working some whole grains into their ration - hoping that might have some benefit.

mine hit a growth spurt - which was great to see.

oink oink!

 

[aggieterpkatie]

C'mon restaurant guy! Give up the goods!

No piggie for us yet. Still contemplating. Maybe after we get back from vacation in July.

 

[freemotion]

It has been over a month since I wrote about what we are feeding the pigs and it has been a scary few weeks, pig budget-wise. The restaurant guy has given us an average of 3 small boxes a week, mostly lettuce. That has barely made a dent in the appetites of four growing pigs. So it has been corn, corn, and more corn, (have you seen the price of grain lately??? ) with some oats thrown in and all soaked with whey from cheesemaking. Even the whey has been scarce since I was feeding up to five baby goats at a time with the milk.

Thus the pig completely stripped their pasture. We have to work on the electric fence today as they are working on digging their way out. I've given them fresh lawn clippings and yesterday started scything grass for them.

But this weekend has been making up for the dry spell, and what we got should get us through until the local farms have lots of leftovers for us and we'll also have our own garden waste. All the baby goats are sold and the milk is pouring in at about two gallons a day. I can't make that much cheese (gotta work outside the home, after all :/ ) so they'll likely start getting some milk now and then.

Today we picked up four full buckets (and we get to keep the buckets, with lids!) of sauces, soups, and melted ice cream from the restaurant, along with a huge box of salad greens. They are closing for a week of vacation and cleaned everything out. Which means no food from them for two weeks, however, the pigs will be very full and satisfied and it will be safer to go in and work on the fence later today.

And we answered an ad on craigslist for free grain (the ad said cracked wheat) and came home with 55 pails of organic wheat....which will be reserved for the goats and hens. Then there were 48 (I think) boxes of other stuff, each box has six large cans, most of which the pigs will get....mostly powdered milk, pancake mix, pudding mix, flour, etc. A few boxes of cracked wheat will be saved for chick food, and two boxes of white sugar will be set aside for winemaking and kombucha, about the only thing we use sugar for in this house.

If I work them up to a case a day, the boxes will get me into August with the addition of a little corn. I soak/ferment the whole mess for 2-3 days, and it really swells and fills the bucket.

DH gets a bit antsy when lots of stuff comes into the house (in this case the garage and barn) but I just hugged the stack and told him I was hugging all our bacon.

 

[freemotion]

A couple weeks ago I was listening to a recorded lecture by Sally Fallon Morell and she said that pigs fed a diet without saturated fats died of lung disease. I realized that our pigs had a very, very low fat diet so I practically ran to the fridge to clean it out and find every jar of saved fat. I sorted them and chose some older ones to bring out to the pigs right then and there. Since then, they've been getting a couple globs of fat each 2-3 times a week and have really started thriving. My dad doesn't see them very often and noticed a big difference.

Some pictures taken today, when the temps hit 107 F in the shade. I went out to check on them and found their tubs empty of water and their mud wallows almost dried up....so I ran the hose for a while, hosed them off much to their delight, filled the water tub which they quickly dove into and emptied and filled both feed tubs with water to give them half a chance to have some drinking water while I was at work. I also set up a sprinkler to water the pasture along their fence and to sprinkle their wallow area.

These were all taken before running the hose:

 

[Farmfresh]

What happy looking pigs! The sitting down one has a perfect contented smile. So much different than commercial pigs.

 

[TanksHill]

Great pics!! O need to show this to my dh. He is really showing interest in raising a couple. Maybe this fall.

 

[freemotion]

Just came in from hosing them off, moved the sprinkler in my pasture. Trying to save my pasture but in just two days a lot of it is crispy and dead. :/

The pigs keep dumping their water tubs and I don't want them to go without water for very long. Since I move the sprinkler every hour or two, the pigs get checked every other time I'm out there. They've all learned to drink from the hose! The boys love to be hosed with a heavy stream of water, the girls don't....they prefer a gentle sprinkle that they run into on THEIR terms. I have no worries that I will be eating bacon raised in cruel conditions!

 

[Farmfresh]

My best friend when I was growing up had an unusual water tank for her horse. It was an old cast iron bathtub! Her dad had the drain fixed to a plumbing pipe with a regular water shut off on it. I often thought that one of those partially buried with the drain piped to a wallow area would be a great water tub for pigs.

 

[freemotion]

Fantastic idea, FF! It would work great on a slight slope, so the drain could go to a lower wallow area. I think the tub would have to be partially buried so the short young hogs could reach it.

 

[Farmfresh]

My thinking entirely. It would be very easy to drain the dirty tub, re using the water for a wallow and then refill the clean water into the tub. You could even route it so the shut off is outside of the pen for safety. No more dumped stock tanks.