It is best to feed pigs with special compound feeds with various vitamin supplements. It will turn out the fastest way to grow a pig and get high-quality meat than when feeding with food waste and root crops.
Pigs have a single-chamber stomach, therefore it is more difficult for them than cattle, for example, to digest feeds containing fiber. For more information on cattle nutrition, click here. The diet of pigs should for the most part consist of concentrated feed, and juicy green and roughage should be less.
You may prefer traditional wet feeding, which includes mash of food waste, vegetables, boiled potatoes, herbs and grains. You could also choose to feed pigs with dry food: crushed grain mixtures with the addition of pea flour, meal and vitamin and mineral supplements. With dry feeding, be sure to drink plenty of water, otherwise you will risk constipation, and weight gain will slow down.
Dry type of feeding requires less labor – you do not have to cook vegetables twice a day and carry heavy buckets with a stirrer, just crush the grain in advance, mix with other components and give each pig its own portion.
Manure of pigs on a dry feed diet does not have a pungent odor and is already suitable for use in the garden as a fertliser after a year (on wet food – after a couple of years). Dry fed piglets grow more quickly, therefore, if you are looking to maximise your pig litters for business, you will want to feed a dry diet.
Important Subtleties
- Feeds should be fed to the pigs in milled form, as they are better digested. It is simply uneconomical to give whole grains to pigs – animals chew them poorly, as a result, most of the grains in undigested form are excreted along with feces.
- Potatoes are cooked, having previously washing the tubers of dirt. Boiled potato water is not recommended.
- As a vitamin supplement, a small number of root crops are fed raw, and as a main feed in large quantities, boiled. For more detailed information, click here.
- Feed should be given exactly as much as the pig eats at one time, especially for mash makers that turn sour quickly. The uneaten food residues are not used during the next feeding. This can lead to potential food poisoning.
- There are a lot of carbohydrates in cereals, but not enough protein. In order to provide pigs with protein, they need to be given legumes, fodder yeast, oilcake, fishmeal, reverse, meat and bone meal, skim milk.
Milk Feeding Piglets
Piglet-suckers are taught to feed solids from the fifth day of life, when their teeth are cut. Feeding roasted grains of corn, barley, peas, and wheat helps piglets develop salivary glands and the dental system. They also begin to give acidophilic yogurt to prevent gastrointestinal diseases.
Then, suckling piglets include special compound feeds with premixes in the diet or they give chalk, charcoal, bone meal. For succulent feed, piglets are usually start at 10 days of age, fed mashed raw carrots, and later – finely chopped. Young piglets are given beets, pumpkins, and combined silage in small quantities; they begin to eat boiled potatoes after three weeks.
Piglets are weaned from their mothers by one and a half months, gradually accustoming to a certain feeding – dry or wet. By the time of weaning, sows on the uterine diet reduce the proportion of concentrates, remove succulent feed and transfer to dry feed, which leads to the cessation of lactation.
However, piglets are allowed to drink milk less and less, increasing feeding. After 10 days, the piglets are left in a separate room from the mother and completely transferred to normal food three times a day.
Weaned piglets are given a mixture of concentrates, fishmeal, skim milk, succulent feed, vitamin feed (carrots, hay, combined silage) and minerals. Moreover, in winter, concentrates should be 70% of the diet, succulent feed – 10%, bean flour – 5%, animal additives – 5%.
Gilt Growing
While growing in the womb, pigs form a skeleton and muscle tissue, on which lard will later be deposited. If this period fell in the summer, you can cheaply and quickly feed the gilts (female pig less than a year old) using grazing on young grass with the addition of kitchen waste and concentrates.
Part of the mowed grass is given fresh, and part is finely chopped and steamed with hot water under the lid two hours before feeding. Before feeding, crushed warm potatoes and concentrates are added to the herbal mass, as a result of the mixture in appearance it looks like a thick soup.
Nutrition is one of the basic needs of any living organism. The body needs a balanced daily intake of nutrients, vitamins and trace elements. This process allows you to stay healthy and continue active life.
Without food, the body will not be able to live long, and malnutrition and poor pork feeds will lead to illness or death. Thus, in order to live long and avoid health problems, it is necessary to monitor nutrition.
If you own animals, then one of the main obligations to them is the timely provision of a healthy diet. Gilts in particular are vulnerable as this will the first time they will bear a litter. Regular supervision is advised and to refer to your vet if you are concerned.
Feeding Boars and Sows
Boars should be fed easily digestible foods that do not cause obesity. It is desirable that their diet consist of 75% concentrates, 10% additives of animal origin and succulent feed, 5% of leguminous herbs. Wheat bran, oats, barley, beets, carrots, skim milk are suitable. To balance the diet, boars are fed with vitamin and mineral supplements.
The nutrition of pigs during the first period of gestation should include a variety of high-quality feeds: green grass, concentrates, silage, potatoes, root crops, grass meal, meat and bone meal and mineral supplements.
To prevent the sow from lacking calcium, you need to add chalk or limestone to its diet. Abundant feeding in the first months of gestation must be avoided, otherwise the risk of embryo mortality will increase. In the second half of gestation, the proportion of succulent feed is reduced, and three days before farrowing, the entire diet is reduced by 30-40%. For more information on farrowing, have a look at this article.
General dietary structure and daily nutrient requirement
Before starting pig breeding, one of the main questions must be answered – how much do you need to feed these animals? It is necessary to find out in advance how to feed the pig in order to obtain the desired result. Your end goal will often determine how much you need to feed them.
The ration and daily requirement is calculated taking into account a number of factors:
- Breed;
- Age pregnancy and feeding (for sows);
- Growing goals (breeding or slaughter);
- Financial opportunities.
Fast fattening and weight gain is possible only with strict observance of the diet. Pigs must be fed at the same time of day. Feeding of pregnant sows is done once, single and lactating sows – twice a day. Fattening pigs, weaners, piglets during the rearing period feed three times a day.
Considering age, condition and goals, one of three feeding modes is used:
- Ad libitum
- Normalized
- Limited
Groups of feeds
The quality of pig products directly depends on the quality of food products that the pig feeds on. All feeds are divided into three groups according to their effect on meat quality.
- The first group of food products allows you to get high-quality meat products.
- The second group has less useful qualities and is suitable for obtaining varieties of meat of medium quality.
- The third group includes poor food, which directly affects the quality of meat. However, they can safely feed young pigs to reach 60 kg (132 lbs) of weight.
High Grade Meat
For higher grades of meat, feed your pigs these foods to allow you to get the highest quality pork and dense, grained lard. For fattening pigs of the highest grade of meat, the diet must be green feed and animal feed. These include:
- Juicy vegetables and root crops: Potatoes, carrots, pumpkin, sugar beets.
- Green feed: Nettle, alfalfa, clover.
- Cereals: Barley, millet, peas, rye.
- Roughage: Hay flour from legumes (alfalfa, clover, etc.)
- Dairy products and meat waste.
Medium Grade Meat
This group of feeds includes lower-quality food. They can be up to half of the total feed mass, but it is advisable not to exceed this amount. With constant feeding of pigs with these products, meat and lard gradually lose their taste.
Such feeds can be beneficial (for example, corn gives animals a lot of energy, but contains almost no protein), but it is advisable to introduce this diet together with the first group. These include:
- Corn
- Buckwheat
- Wheat and rye bran
Low Grade pork
For low quality pork, the third group of food products leads to a deterioration in the quality of meat and fat. The meat becomes coarse, unsuitable for canning. Fat acquires a loose texture, poorly stored. Products of this group should not be used with greasy fattening, but with meat, that can be used in the last stages. These foods include – soy, cake, and oats.
Types of feed
Combined feed is necessary for pigs to gain weight and enrich the body with nutrients. According to the origin of feed for pigs are classified as follows:
- Vegetable (cereals, bran, green feed, root crops, oilcake, meal)
- Animals (dairy products, meat waste and flour)
- Food waste
- Compound feed
- Synthetic
- Mineral
Cereals – the most important part of the diet.
Pig feed usually contains a large number of easily digestible substances. They help balance the diet. Cereals are characterized by a high content of metabolic energy, but they have low biological value.
- Corn. It has great nutritional value among cereals. Due to the scarce protein content, it is not suitable for young animals and sows.
- Barley. It is one of the best animal feed, which is why it is often used as the basis for compound feed. It has a positive effect on meat quality.
- Oats. An important dietary component of feed and animal feed. Oat Nutrition is the benchmark for measuring nutrition in feed units.
- Wheat. For feed use a low quality and coarse product. Fine grinding can release a lot of gluten, which leads to digestion.
- Legumes. They contain a lot of protein – 20-40%. The most nutritious crop is soy.
- Flax seeds. Valuable dietary supplement. It is rich in unsaturated fatty acids (omega-3), vitamins A and E.
Bran
Contains a large amount of fiber and protein. Wheat bran is especially enriched. As a food product, they are suitable for all age groups of pigs, but they should be added to the diet in small quantities.
Silo
Good nutritious food. It has an acidic environment and is well stored without access to air. Such food cannot be left in the trough for a long time, because it quickly deteriorates outdoors. The silage process lends itself to most types of feed.
Hay
Has a high nutritional value. Depending on the time of mowing the grass, its composition, and storage conditions, its nutritional properties may change. This product – the only one among the roughage contains in the composition of vitamin B – an important component of the body’s mineral metabolism.
Straw
This feed is a stalk of cereals and legumes that have undergone a process of grinding to grain. Straw has an average energy value and low nutritional properties. Because of this, it is used to weight and give volume to other feeds.
Vegetables to apply
Contain soluble carbohydrates, vitamins of group B and C. Pectin components allow the removal of toxic substances formed in the process of decay in the intestines from the body of an animal. Vegetables are low in nutrition, but contain a lot of water. Because of this, they easily deteriorate and can cause poisoning. Root crops should be washed. Potatoes must be cooked and chopped. Pumpkin, watermelon, zucchini are dairy products.
Animal
Animal products include:
- Milk and its derivatives. Milk has all the nutrients and trace elements. Especially useful when feeding.
- Meat, blood and bone meal, as well as technical fat.
- Fish-meal and fat, fish waste. Increases productivity. To avoid unpleasant odors from meat and fat, at the final stages of fattening, flour from feathers should be excluded from the diet.
- Feather flour
Chemical and biological synthesis: yeast, chalk, coal, ash
With a lack of vitamins and minerals, premixes and mineral additives are introduced into the pig diet. You can buy them ready-made, in a balanced way, or make them yourself. Also, fodder fish oil can provide vitamins, which should be given and not stopped. Premixes contain vitamins, minerals, therapeutic drugs, amino acids, enzymes, etc. Mineral additives are:
- Yeast
- Coal
- Chalk
- Salt
- Clay
- Ash
Forms of feed in the household
In form, all feeds are divided into dry, wet, concentrated and combined. Dry products are most often used on farms with a large number of animals. Wet feeding requires more effort, so it is used mainly on small farms. However, liquid pig feeds are more readily eaten faster.
Coarse or dry: composition, additives – soy, yeast, fish oil cake.
Dry food includes full-feed and crushed grain mixtures with various additives (premixes, oil cake, and bran). When used in animals, there should be enough water in the drinker, as they are difficult to digest. Dry feed is easier to use because it does not require prior preparation, compared with wet. They can fill automatic feeders.
Wet
This type of feed is the oldest since food waste has traditionally been the diet of pigs. Most animals prefer to eat liquid food. It is easy to use and assimilate. This type of food allows you to quickly increase the gain in live weight in pigs, as well as achieve the weight necessary for slaughter. However, wet feeding is more costly in terms of preparation and feeding to animals.
Concentrated: normal per day, consumption
Concentrated are cereal feed and by-products of the processing of grain crops, oilseeds. They are characterized by increased nutritional properties, usually contain up to 16% water and up to 15% fiber. By the content of protein and carbohydrates, such feeds are divided into two groups:
- Protein. Contain 20-25% protein. Seeds of peas, soybeans, legumes, oilcake, meal.
- Carbohydrates. With a content of 60-70% starch. Oats, corn, barley, wheat, millet.
Selection of the diet depending on the type of fattening
Depending on the objectives pursued, there are 2 main types of fattening:
- Meat;
- Bacon;
Fattening in order to obtain meat is used on young animals of any breed. To do this, use potatoes, corn, barley, animal feed. Pigs for meat fattening need a sufficient amount of mineral additives, the consumption is high. The secrets of using the pig feeding rate table are described in this article.
Bacon fattening is applied to the best-developed pigs and neutered boars of precocious breeds. Fattening begins at the age of 4 months. Such a process is divided into two periods:
- In the 1st period, pigs feed on fodders, providing high weight gain and bacon quality. You should also add mineral top dressing.
- In the 2nd period, animals must be given what: barley, peas, potatoes, beets, succulent grass of leguminous plants, milk waste.
Conclusion
- Proper nutrition is the basis of health and long life not only in humans, but also in animals. You should carefully select a diet for animals.
- This will allow you to achieve your goals in a short time.
- The pig diet on the farm is very rich, so it will not be difficult to choose products for a balanced, efficient diet.
- Feed can be purchased ready-made and make your own homemade of boiled potatoes, eggs, crushed, brine, etc.
- Pigs also need vitamins and mineral supplements. Especially during periods of growth, pregnancy and lactation, for example, you can make a yeast, add baking powder to the feed.
- Feed should be selected in accordance with the breed, age and individual characteristics of the pigs.