What should pigs eat?

[Chris Hennes]

I'm currently talking to a number of different farmers in my area, looking to buy a pig. One of the main differences between the various places is what they are feeding the hogs, and I'm wondering if anyone has any firsthand knowledge of the affect of diet on the taste of the pork. I've certainly heard of acorn-finished or peanut-finished hogs, though I've never eaten either. But what about: "our pigs are pastured and are given left over garden produce (they love pumpkins!)" versus "grass fed pastured" or "grain diet of corn & ground soybeans"?

[PopsicleToze]

Grew up with father and all of the great-uncles still raising pigs every year for family consumption -- complete with slaughter day, cracklins, hogshead cheese, etc. Everyone always fed them grain to fatten them up.

"Pasture-fed" -- I don't know about that. They will eat just about anything in their way, probably everything, and they can definitely tear up a yard, but we always kept them in a pen, and unless someone actually wants his pasture torn to pieces, I can't see it. They would have to have some kind of fence around the pigs anyway, or they would become wild pigs.

Also, the common denominator seems to be grains whether its whole dried corn (what we did), acorns for the parma hams, etc. I havent heard of feeding them peanuts, but that makes sense, too. And there was what we called "slop" to round out their feed. Ground grains (&?) that you mixed with water before filling their trough. They'd knock you down to get it.

Call your local 4H extension group and they will probably have all of the information you could want on them. FHA and 4Hers are always raising pigs.

Rhonda

Rhonda

Edited March 4, 2010 by PopsicleToze (log)

[Chris Hennes]

The problem with the 4H and FFA kids is that they are raising the pigs to be "pretty," not to taste good. In particular, they are seeking a very lean hog, which is basically the opposite of what I want (while in the Extension office this morning I listened to two young ladies discussing how good their pigs looked in tutus... ). As for pasturing them: this is a reasonably common approach around here, I think called "rotational grazing," where the hogs are rotated between fenced-off sections of pasture on a periodic basis. I don't raise them myself, and if these people are willing to deal with it, more power to them! My concern with pigs that are exclusively pastured is that they would wind up VERY lean, like grass-fed cattle do.

[sheepish]

I have a few pigs to grow each year. They run around in 30-40 acres of mixed grassland and woodland. They are a bit leaner than I'd prefer but it's the only pork I ever see with a bit of marbling. I would prefer fatter piggies but if that means penning them for less exercise, which in my experience leads to them having nothing but bare earth after a month or so, I'd sooner let them roam and have less fat. Just my opinion and conscience.

A lot of pigs penned into a nice pasture are going to make a mess. You wouldn't know where mine had been 3 months after they hit the freezer.

As for what they eat affecting flavour, sorry, no idea. Mine eat what they can find supplemented by 500g of commercial pig nuts per head per month of age. It's illegal in the UK to feed them kitchen scraps, although you can feed crops that haven't been in a kitchen.

[Chris Hennes]

Interesting - what are "commercial pig nuts"? And is that 500g per day (per head per month of age...)?

[Jondick]

As I am about to send my first pig off to slaughter I figured I would share what I have learned from my first go round. I went into this with the best of intentions with "Hank". I was going to raise her on a diet consisting primarily of apples, acorns and whatever she naturally foraged from the land. It took all of 24 hours to come to the conclusion that she would spend her short existence in a fenced off area that she could destroy at her leisure but would minimize her exposure to the rest of the property. (I was told putting a ring through their snout limits the rooting.)

To give you the simple answer to your question about what you should feed it...anything and everything. Hank seems to dislike onions, peppers and raw potatoes. Just about anything else seems to be to her liking. I did feed her left over garden clippings and other vegetation for a few days before quickly moving to a pig slop mixture consisting primarily of dried ground corn. I was paying about $11 per 50lb bag.

Hank is now pushing about 200 lbs and needs a lot of food. I decided to go around town and speak to the managers at various restaurants I frequent. I now collect on average of 50 gallons of leftovers from the local diner each week. Hank is a VERY happy animal since the switch to leftover home-fries, donuts, pies and your various diner fare.

She has been pretty easy since we secured and raised her fencing. She grew faster then I ever could have imagined. They're relatively friendly and intelligent animals. I'm greatly looking forward to consuming her.

I will get some pictures up in the morning.

[Chris Hennes]

Hank is a VERY happy animal since the switch to leftover home-fries, donuts, pies and your various diner fare.

You may have found the secret diet to the tastiest pigs EVER.

[Lapin d'Argent]

Only slightly off-topic, but for a truly fascinating overview of all sorts of pigs and hogs and boars in general, in their varied natural habitats, I highly recommend The Whole Hog: Exploring the Extraordinary Potential of Pigs, by Lyall Watson.

It may not exactly answer your question, Chris, but it will make you even more in awe of pigs in general (if such a thing is possible).

Pigs are very, very cool.

[Peter the eater]

I've raised a handful of pigs in the last few years and I can report that the one intentionally "finished" on apples was the best. The other three were genetically very similar, and raised in the same way on the same farm. My inkling is not scientific, but I suspect diet does have a measurable effect on flavor. My knowledge of the pigs' diet certainly affects my perception of flavor.

[Dakki]

A cousin of mine once had a go at fattening pigs on city-collected garbage as part of a recycling/landfill relief thing. Mom claims the pork chops tasted like a dumpster smells.

[RobertCollins]

As a boy in the early 60's I spent a lot of time on my uncles farm in NW Missouri. He was primarily a dairy farmer who milked Brown Swiss for their cream.

The milk would be centrifuged to collect the cream and the whey was waste. That is not to say that it was dumped 'cause it sure wasn't.

The whey was poured into barrels and mixed with wheat and barley. It was allowed to ferment and fed to the hogs uncle raised for himself and family. Those hogs wouldn't just knock you down to get to it, they would trample you. The mix [i don't know what it would be called- mash maybe?] really did ferment and become alcoholic at some level and pigs, like men are fond of their brew. This was the finish food along with slop but not much of that would be kitchen scraps, in fact, I read that Kansas for sure and I think MO too outlawed kitchen slop to try to eliminate sources of trichinosis.

A friend of mine from Portland tells me there are some Willamette Valley Pork Producers that are finishing on Barley. He says the pork is wonderful.

[nikkib]

I have never raised pigs but have eaten many of the acorn fed ones and they are truly delicious!

[sparrowgrass]

I know (from my Feeds and Feeding classes in grad school) that different feeds affect the consistency of the fat on a hog. Do a google for "soft pork" and you will learn more than you really want to know.

Basically, if you feed a high fat diet to finish the hog, you will end up with softer fat. Commercially, this is bad, because it makes bacon impossible to slice neatly. But, just glancing thru some of the articles I came up with, soft fat may be better tasting.

Here's one link: fat quality

[Chris Hennes]

I would think that soft fat would also be problem for making salami with nice high-definition fat pieces. I was only considering flavor up to this point, but I guess I will have to look more into the firmness of the back fat as well.

[sheepish]

@Chris Hennes : By commercial pig nuts I mean processed feed sold for pigs in a nut or pellet shape. They have a specific protein % depending on what you are feeding. Farrowing gilts, weening piglets, fattening/growing. From memory the ones I buy, just because they are what my local feed merchant stocks is about 16% protein. They're mainly derived from soya. And yes 500g / pig/ month old / per day - although when they hit about 4 months I tend to hold it static so for 3 growers never really more than 6Kg/day. It depends on the breed. Modern, improved breeds grow quickly and won't put on fat very easily. If you want good back fat look for older breeds. In the UK that would be stuff like Gloucester Old Spots, Oxford Sandy Blacks, Berkshire, Tamworth. They grow slower and get fatter than the modern stuff like Durocs.

@JonDick - I've always been told raw potatoes are, if not poisonous, not good for pigs, so probably best yours wasn't keen. Ringing noses does stop rooting, but rooting is natural behaviour for pigs and personally I'd hate to stop that. Plus when I was young and rebellious I had a ring in my nose and it was sore for weeks!

[xxchef]

We raise around 4 hogs a year from weaner piglettes for friends, local restaurants and ourselves. We're a cheese dairy and the hogs are primarily raised on the whey from cheese making (whey can replace up to 30% of their normal diet on a dry matter value basis if anyone is taking notes). Additionally they get lots of garden trimmings and some table scraps with the balance made up with a grain - usually cracked corn.

Pigs are natural omnivores. They'll eat just about anything you offer them, falls into their area or is small enough and too slow to out run them. I've seen them chase down and devour in one bite baby chicks and peafowl who have strayed into their area or root up a mouse nest just to slurp up the pile of hairless "pinkies". And these are not hungry pigs either. They seem to do it as much for the sport as anything.

That said, "you are what you eat" dictates that your going to want to be at least a little careful with the diet. Hogs go from almost a 1:1 feed conversion ratio (they turn every pound of feed they eat into nearly a pound of pig)as new borns to about a 4:1 ratio by the time they are 6 months old. That means that nearly 25% of everything you feed them as young adults is retained. This seems like an excellent opportunity to influence the flavor of the meat with diet (what if they ate a pound of sage a day, what would that do to the meat flavor??) but in reality we've found vary little direct relation between special diet and special flavor.

I think it vital the the hogs get fed a good, balanced diet for over-all health. They need to be able to act like hogs (playing, rooting around etc) for happiness. They need to be treated humanely at all times, right up to the moment the are dispatched. I think these are the most important things that go into making a tasty hog.

There are also big differences between types/breeds of hogs (lean-type vs lard-type) and their corresponding dietary needs but that's more than I'm going to get into right now.

Good luck!

[Dakki]

(while in the Extension office this morning I listened to two young ladies discussing how good their pigs looked in tutus... )

Ahahahahaha how the heck did I miss this before? You just made my day, Chris.

Anyway, to the pig experts out there, should a pig's diet be determined by the breed? What about climate? The age the pig will be taken to slaughter? The best cut of meat sought (eg, am I raising for bacon, ham, chops)?

I bet there's books and pamphlets on small-scale pig farming from before pork went lean with a lot of the info we seek. I have a British one for goats somewhere around here...

[xxchef]

Anyway, to the pig experts out there, should a pig's diet be determined by the breed? What about climate? The age the pig will be taken to slaughter? The best cut of meat sought (eg, am I raising for bacon, ham, chops)?

I'm no expert but I will share my experience. We've been raising a few hogs every year, primarily on the whey from our small goat dairy, for 7 or 8 years. We grow them out for about 9 months (more than is commercially common) to coincide with our seasonal cheese-making.

For the first hogs we got, I followed some online guidance for feeding which stopped at 6 months so I just kept increasing the feed proportionally as they got bigger. When we picked up the halves from slaughter, our butcher made some comment about them being over-fatted. He wasn't kidding. We got almost 100 lbs of rendered lard off one of them! The meat was excellent but, apparently, all the extra feed went mostly into external the fat layers. The bacon slices were 3" wide!

The next year, after some more research, I adjusted my feeding schedule and only marginally increased their feed over the last 3 months. These hogs came out WAY too lean. "What the heck??!!" I mean so lean that the bacon was more like ham without enough fat to even think about crisping up when cooked. The meat was OK in flavor but moist cooking was needed for most cuts and there was barely enough fat on the chops to render in the pan for searing. I was confused and po'd. Back to the research department.

I was pretty comfortable with the feeding regime now so it must be something else. I'd gotten the second year's piglets from a different source so I got in touch with both suppliers and got information on the breeds (sorry I can't find my notes on the specifics right now). It turns out the the first hogs I got were from what is considered a lard-type breed and the second ones from a lean-type breed. Knowing that I wanted the lard-type I was more careful with the following year's purchase and the hogs came out perfect (he humbly declared)! I have since settled on getting a particular cross (Hampshire-Duroc), from the same breeder every year and have been thrilled with the results.

I don't know about climate-related feed changes but it stands to reason that a slight increase might be necessary in very cold weather as the hogs will be using more energy to stay warm (ie converting less to meat). In hot weather it is vital to give them plenty of fresh water to drink and a nice deep mud wallow (pigs don't sweat and need to cool off externally).

As for feeding for the cut of meat, I've found that (within the context of fat-type vs lean-type) what makes one cut excellent translates pretty directly into excellent cuts all around. When the bacon is perfect, the hams are nicely fatted, the shoulders (picnics) have about the perfect lean-fat ratio for charcuterie or BBQ, the chops have a lovely fat coat and you'll still get plenty of leaf fat for rendering etc. I think this is even more true with heritage/ all-purpose breeds.

I bet there's books and pamphlets on small-scale pig farming from before pork went lean with a lot of the info we seek. I have a British one for goats somewhere around here...

Here's a good place to start. It's also British from the SmallHolder website http://www.accidentalsmallholder.net/articles/pigs/

Edited March 6, 2010 by xxchef (log)

[paulraphael]

That said, "you are what you eat" dictates that your going to want to be at least a little careful with the diet.

More true with hogs than with any other animal I know. They seem to process food very little before turning it into fat; this is why hogs that feed on apples taste fruity, hogs that feed on acorns taste nutty, hogs that feed on slop taste ...

I've never raised a hog but have tasted some of the startling differences between varieties of Spanish ham. In these cases I believe the breed is often similar but the feed varies significantly.

[Dakki]

Thanks for the information xxchef. Do you think if you fed a lean-type pig your original diet (that produced ridiculous amts of fat in the lard-type) you could have achieved the same results as you did putting the lard-type on a diet?

The meat was excellent but, apparently, all the extra feed went mostly into external the fat layers. The bacon slices were 3" wide!

3" wide bacon would be the greatest thing ever.

[xxchef]

Thanks for the information xxchef. Do you think if you fed a lean-type pig your original diet (that produced ridiculous amts of fat in the lard-type) you could have achieved the same results as you did putting the lard-type on a diet?

I've wondered that myself. I suspect that while a heavier feed regime would certainly have helped the meat cuts (a lot), I'm not sure that the fat coverings and bacon would have ever achieved (overachieved??) that degree of development.

3" wide bacon would be the greatest thing ever.

It was quite spectacular to see when raw but it melted down to near-normal sized pieces when fried-up making the yield ratio pretty pathetic. Lots of great bacon grease to use later though!

[Taylorspruill2014]

You can visit our site to know more about what the pigs should eat

 

http://spruillbros.com

[Paul Bacino]

Pumpkins...they have some property..that is good for them

Edited May 7, 2014 by Paul Bacino (log)

[Martin Fisher]

Feed is important but genetics plays as big, if not bigger, role in quality.

I raised pigs for years and studied up on feeds and feeding quite a bit over the years.

Limiting PUFA (Polyunsaturated fatty acid) is the secret to really good, high-quality and flavorful, pork and pork fat.

 

http://www.ans.iastate.edu/report/air/2004pdf/AS1954.pdf

 

"Pigs fed barley diets did have lower iodine value content within the
subcutaneous fat indicating that the fat is of firmer quality."

"Barley does however have a significant impact on the hardness of pork fat."

The hardness of the fat is where the big difference in quality lies, for several reasons, including flavor, stability of the fat in sausages and cured products, no fat-out during cooking, little or no smear during grinding and stuffing, easier slicing, no weeping in dry cured sausages, etc.

Soft fat will turn rancid much easier than hard fat.

Corn is high in PUFAs.
PUFAs lead to soft fat.

 

Italy sets limits on PUFA levels in feed to ensure high quality fat.

 

http://woolypigs.blogspot.com/2009/02/soft-pork-mangalitsa-fat-quality-and.html

 

Other European countries share similar standards.

Pork fat quality in Canada tends to be better than in the US because they feed more barley.

 

Americans used to take the quality of pork much more seriously than they do now.....

http://books.google.com/books?id=lqG2AAAAIAAJ&pg=PA428#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

More info....

http://wcroc.cfans.umn.edu/prod/groups/cfans/@pub/@cfans/@wcroc/documents/asset/cfans_asset_356794.pdf

http://www.pic.com/Images/Users/1/SalesPortal/Newsletters/CuttingEdge/CuttingEdge1stQ10New.pdf

http://www.extension.purdue.edu/extmedia/id/id-345-w.pdf

[TaylorSpruill]

Pastured pork is more nutritious. Pastured pork has higher levels of vitamin E, healthy Omega-3 fatty acids, and many other nutrients than conventionally raised pork