How To Grow Your Own Pig Food On Pasture
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 23 มิ.ย. 2022
- We always get a lot of questions on how to grow your own pig food for your pasture raised pigs, Today we're doing a deep dive into how Mark raises Rye for the pigs
The seeder in today's video
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Is this video meaning to claim that mangalitsa pigs can survive on a diet of solely just rye cover crop grass and no other supplemental grains? I’ve been on farms that did a similar intensive rotational grazing system which involved not just planting rye but a whole variety of diverse nutrient dense high bio mass cover crops…this is actually not uncommon in pastured pork systems: they all still supplement with other feed grains, minerals and even compost scraps. This video makes it seem like they are raising not just feeders but birthing pregnant sows on solely rye grass? 🤷♂️
No we didn't intend to make that claim BUT we forgot to mention it in the video, this is meant ONLY to supplement their diet!
We also feed small grains they do great on rye and their feed consumption will go way down but we still make sure they have access to other feeds to balance their diet.
Great comment thanks for helping us clarify our video!
can they digest these stuff or does it just pass through? pigs are not cows.
@@danielch6662 it gets digested, just not very well (especially if they're eating a lot of it). In my opinion, the real potential is in protein.
In dry mass, good quality green vegetation is about 1/3 the energy value of corn. That's in an ideal situation, with a quite immature plant that's also ideally not a grass (chicory and clovers for example).
However, the protein in that same plant is going to be very digestible (~80% digestibility), which is especially nice considering fresh greens can be rich in essential amino acids (up to 0.8% (dry mass) digestible méthionine in dwarf white clover for example).
But you're still dealing with a monogastric, so they won't deal well if too high a proportion of their diet is fibrous (I don't have a reference for pigs, but chickens can do well with up to 70% grain and 30% quality fresh greens by dry mass). When you go to a very high ingestion of green fibrous matter, not only are you going to lose digestibility on that green, but it's also going to reduce the global digestive efficiency, so you're losing value on the grain as well. And that's without considering the anti-nutritional factors that are found in crops (especially legumes, with high levels of saponins in alfalfa for example).
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience buy a scythe and trim off a hundred square feet a day and do two cuts per year.
@@gpenicaud Your statement corresponds pretty much with my experiences. If you are putting bred sows on this pasture, you can probably make it work. For a growing pig, this free ranging grass supplement is going to slow their rate of gain down significantly. And, as you point out, if they indulge too heavily on the grass diet, it will have a negative impact on the uptake of nutrients from the grain portion of their diet.
Imagine I’ve never owned a pig and never planted a crop - but I absolutely love learning these things. One day I’ll farm.❤
#anyonecanfarm
Hold on to The Dream. May GOD’s Will be Done.
It’s easier than you think because you already have the one
Want and desire.. Some people think it’s a lot of work but it’s not. a grew up like that! And there was a time when I didn’t do it all my life but wherever I traveled I always stayed in the countryside where I was close to that kind of thing given outside the country..
Same. It's calling to us for a reason and anything that resists consolidation in the wrong hands is a good thing.
I heard Jess from roots and refuge once say, "Make your waiting room your class room" I feel like that's the best advice I've heard about farm/ homesteading. I would like to homestead someday and am researching and learning evry day until then.
The details of farming are always interesting to me. I may watch hundreds of videos and read dozens of books on the subject but will proably never farm myself. It just scratches a itch in my brain.
I am hungarian and I found this randomly browsing pasture maintenence videos for farm animals :D
Glad to see people are doing well with this magnificent animal on the smarter side of the planet! :) Learned almost everything I practice today from videos like this :)
Awesome! Thank you!
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience I saw the pig, and said, hey, that's a mangalitsa!
Fantastic video. I have heard much about the uses and benefits of rye and you added one more positive take on this wonderful plant. I have never heard of the pig you mentioned so thank you for that recommendation and I will be sure and watch your pig video.
pretty inefficient way to get pigs the water and bad for the environment. Once the pigs trample it or pull it out of the ground, the water evaporates.
As far as nutrition, after the 66% water, 28% is hemi-cellulose and the remaining small fraction is calcium and phosphorus. For pigs, only 30 to 40% of the hemicellulose is digestible, because they have a simple, mono gastric stomach. Cows can digest better because they can ferment the cellulose and have the microbes to break it down.
Watching all these interesting farming videos, makes me want to become a farmer.
Awesome! The more the merrier.
Thanks for sharing. I love learning anything farm related. Still hoping to have a hobby farm some day.
Wow, the information in this video was truly amazing.
Thank you for explaining the cattle panel at the end and also thank you for the video!
It's a simple and cheap drag harrow. :)
We call it harrowing up north here in Canada eh! Building highways we always use grass seed of course in the ditches. Quad pulls the harrow covers up the seed and makes everything blend in nice.
All the best to everyone here.
You’re ahead of your time don’t stop I learned a lot from you I have chickens I like to raise animals and I need more land I don’t require as much with that but it is important Florida Tennessee
Glad we could help you! good luck down there!
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience What kind of ryegrass is that I want to see how it grows in Florida and in Tennessee and see the difference
Mulberry trees also grow very quickly if heavily prune and leaves can be eaten.
The whole fodder system is rich, agreed. We have honey locust growing to add to our forage feeds. Mulberry is another great option. Thanks for your insight!
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience How about Natsugumi? It's fairly weather resistant and the roots naturally contain nitrogen fixing bacteria.
Thank you this is fascinating .
Always liked pigs . I am a city slicker learning from you .
Glad you enjoyed it
Sounds impressive! Equates to around 2ton dry matter. Like the marketing and advertising! Keep it up.
what is dry matter?
@@mikevinitsky8506dry matter is a weight taken after you remove all of the moisture out of the sample.
Dry matter is needed to calculate a stocking rate. (number of livestock or pounds of live animals per area of land for a given duration)
Hope this helps! Ask away if there are further questions. Or I need to explain further.
I planted barley and oats for my pigs but I’m excited to add some field peas and rye. I love pastured pigs
You love pasture pigs.
THEN YOU ARE A FOOL!!!!
Pasture pigs make Feral hogs.
I can always tell people that have raised pigs for a minute. The pasture pigs.
A hog needs a good sturdy pen..Like cement.
Not doing this is irresponsible.
NOTHING LESS.
@@baddog9320 we raise our pigs in sturdy pens, but they are 50FT by 50ft with grass and trees in them there is nothing wrong with doing things differently your way make work for you but it's not the only way. Calling someone a fool that's just not right.
@@baddog9320 my pasture pigs “ hogs” stay in with three strands of hot wire. Never had any get out. I train them young and I’ve been raising them for 3+ years 40+ pigs.
I even do rotational grazing with them. It works out great and makes exceptional meat.
My pigs are extremely friendly, and even the boar rolls over for a belly rub. Doesn’t sound too feral to me, but what do I know, I’m just a FOOL. 🤷♀️ 😂
@@baddog9320 I wish someone would pen up all the feral humans.
@@baddog9320 animals shouldn't be raised on concrete for the benefit of a humans' laziness.
Interesting. I'm going to add this knowledge to what I got from Gabe Brown's book
Great video, I planted some rye for my pigs first time in October not grazed them on it yet so this was well timed for me (I have diakon and phacilia also in that mix), I don't get snow in winter so can strip graze until March on turnips and then move to ryegrass/clover/chicory paddocks 7 day rotation. My pigs dig so I don't need to rotovate, and I keep them with one strand of hot wire, I have a few videos too, will subscribe, thanks, Dunk
Just bought a 161 acre farm. Will be doing this for sure.
The hogs will work the manure into the ground in the existing pasture- minimum tillage is better than “rototiller” - a chain rake or chain link fence towed to break any clods/level ground. Add forage radishes, crimson clover and buckwheat to diversify the crop- its better than a mono crop
i love the idea about having pigs, i just love animals and spending time with them. We have had ducks, meat chickens.
2.03 lbs includes all the water in that forage. to get the dry matter (DM) weight, you gotta dry the sample out before weighing it. DM weight is more accurate when calculating forage. DM weight can also be found online for a lot of forages.
yep you could use dry weight but since we're harvesting with the pigs we used the green weight
Most of the weight is water so using DM weight will give you the most accurate stocking rate.
DM is the standard of comparison.
Water sorta does not count.
I have iron age pigs and they eat alot of alfalfa bails in winter and love it .
This video is seven months old, but something got the algorithm to start promoting it. So many recent comments.
Great video. I just subscribe to your channel.
Glad you enjoyed it! good to have you!
I raise mangalitsa pigs. People tell me how intelligent and compassionate pigs are. I tell them pigs are as compassionate as a shark. I processed a five-month-old male yesterday, and his sisters were delighted to lap up his leftovers. Damned city Folk.
Thank you for this vid! I learned something👍
Glad we could help!
We at *Messy Times* use a broadcast spreader just like that on our back forty. It works a treat.
cheap and easy right? Good stuff!
Good video, thankyou. Would like to see a chart of what you do and when and how many pigs you keep on what size ground.
Great video Mark and Joe
Excellent information, channel looks good. Thank you.
Thanks!
Tamworth pigs are bred from a variety known as the" Irish grazer "
My sorgram Sudan grass hit 9 feet tall. It makes lots of feed.
yes it does
I have heard great things about both!
this rye deal, looks good,, going to try it,, thank you for the video,,
pretty inefficient way to get pigs the water and bad for the environment. Once the pigs trample it or pull it out of the ground, the water evaporates.
As far as nutrition, after the 66% water, 28% is hemi-cellulose and the remaining small fraction is calcium and phosphorus. For pigs, only 30 to 40% of the hemicellulose is digestible, because they have a simple, mono gastric stomach. Cows can digest better because they can ferment the cellulose and have the microbes to break it down.
Life is a grand experiment and we should be ever learning and trying new things! Good for you. Our pleasure.
Very interesting. I just subscribed!
Wow! Great information, thanks!!!
Glad it was helpful!
wow this was in my feed? was thinking about this on the way home driving.
Weird how that happens, hope we could help😁
Nice idea...
Great advice!
Thanks for watching!
Just pack in a bunch of biochar to get up to 9% even carbon per acre tilled in 1 time and done, then you can simply water in all the manure no-till. Better than that you can foliar with a nice vortex brew of compost tea, and then those microbes can reproduce from 12 cups of composted manure to equivalent to 10 tons worth within 24 hours, using some simple molasses and compost brewed in a tea.
Interesting idea. Do you have a formula you can share?
Interesting. I loved the financial breakdown.
What is the names of the pig the WILL ear the eye? Do they bring going money at butchering time as the pig that do not eat the eye?
About how much purchased pig feed or other grain ration do you feed your pigs? Knowing the amount of other feed/minerals you have to purchase would be very helpful to me to see if this would be cost effective for me. thanks
Good info. We tried pigs for one year because we had problems with coyotes and bobcats when we had sheep. It was interesting. They eat so much, so growing some of our own food would be great. I wonder if there's something other breeds of pig, like basic Yorkshire, would eat that could be easily grown. Thanks for sharing!
We've raised a lot of breeds of pigs over the years, all on pasture. The Yorkshire, landrace, and that group of breeds will eat the forages, but they don't convert it into pork efficiently. Heritage breeds like the Mangalitsa will. Mark will answer your question in greater detail on the live show on Tuesday, February 1st. Hope you can join us!
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience Good to know. Thanks for the reply!
I don’t know if you can get Tamworths in America. They’re an English breed that are now on the rare breed list. They’re really hardy & will graze grass happily in summer, but will really churn up a paddock in winter. I’ve fed mine small quantities of grass silage & hay & they’ll happily eat that. I reckon they’d eat the rye like the Mangalitza.
Interestingly rye is commonly grown as a forage crop in England & harvested at the green stage. It’s then Ensiled like grass or maize (corn) & fed to livestock, usually dairy cows. @@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience
American Guinea hogs of mine are getting fat on winter hay feeding.
I see those push seed spreaders on craigslist free around me all the time if you want a broadcast spreader
Hurrah! Thank-you. I sow a grazing rye plus winter vetches cover crop in the Autumn on my allotment. The vetches fix nitrogen, so an extra benefit. We can't raise pigs there. I would!
Wonderful! Good for you. Nature helps nature if we step back a step. Thanks for watching.
great work guys! very cool! pigs and hogs eat literally anythang :'d
Good job
Thanks!
His estimated production is kind of misleading. What matters is the DM not the green weight. Most of what he weighed was water(about 80%). Annual Rye produces between 1 and 3 tons per acre not including roots. Just something to consider….Great vid none the less👍
I have that in my yard but didn't know what it was!
love it
Subscribed!!! 🔥🔥👍🏼👍🏼
Thanks! Glad to have you!
does the mud on the roots count as part of the 2 lbs?
Just found the channel nice work guys. Where are you located at? Sorry if you said that didn’t catch it
We’re located in northern Michigan
ThankQ
Our pleasure!
Thank you
You're welcome
Wild edibles like LambsQuarters and Palmers Amaranth are highly nutritious and are considered invasive species meaning they self propagate easily, which I love for easy of growing! Try adding that just once!
For sure! we rotate different crops through the year!
Any idea what the “peas” he planted at the end were? Looks like some standard dry beans or peas from Costco.
So the end of the day use cereal rye for pasture food and supplement with grains.
I was thinking of growing beets, turnips , peanuts etc an setting up pen size wire fencing and just letting then root them out ?
try it out! pigs are great harvesters if something is eatable they'll find a way to get it.
They'll do it. We plant mangels (giant beets) for winter forage here in Flyover Country.
wonderful...
except I have a bone to pick with the mispronunciation and naming of the pigs; they are actually called "mangulica" pigs :)
glad to see Americans discovered this one, I hope they stay true to their roots.
Cheers
I've seen a few comments asking about your stocking density, but haven't seen a reply to any.
We raise pigs, but we're on a raw woodlot and using them to clear, till and level the land for us so we can sow pastures and gardens behind them. I'm curious how many full-grown sows you run on one quarter-acre paddock, and how long before they need to move again? This information will help me plan for next year ;)
How many pigs per acre using this pasture set up?
right area you can do a sunflower, mix with other things.
Very true!
I was thinking of getting customers who want to buy pigs to prepay and later going to an auction and sell those pigs to clients. Maybe you guys can take that method. Best thing is to post ads online of pigs for sale and to test the market. Ive had farm toys since before i could walk and always dreamed of owning a farm. Maybe i can even get a contract with Farmer John or a beef company and they can pay me to raise their Product!!!! Dont tell me the sky is the limit when there is footsteps on the moon. Welcome to the University of TH-cam, i will start a youtube channel soon of a rookie going for the American Dream
Bakers green acres got a video upgrade, nice
Thanks for joining us on the Anyone Can Farm Experience - Remember ANYONE CAN FARM. :)
Sounds like good advice. What do you think about Kale?
We have used kale in the mix on the fields. This video features rye, but we plant a lot of different forages throughout the year. Mark will be answering your question in the live stream show on Tuesday, February 1st if you'd like more information.
What kind of rye seed you planted? Can you put a link and let me know where to buy it. Thanks a lot.
My Grandparents didn’t buy Commercial Feed, They Would Chop, and Pull Grass, and Weeds to feed Their Pigs as well a Hand full of Hardwood Stove ashes for Worming the Pigs. Then when Their Corn Was Mature they would Feed Their Corn to finish them.
good old fashioned know how!
And the difference with GMO varieties available now and the heirlooms of decades ago. I’ve read many old accounts of how corn was a whole food with many livestock, unfortunately, corporate greed has radically changed the nutritional value & face of agriculture today.
Black eye peas make great pig chow
Suggestion: get some Regenerative Agriculture in your reading list. Roto-tilling loses a lot of essential elements, so rotate your animals in smaller paddocks (internal electric fencing is cheap, movable, you have control, animals teach themselves to stay away) and let microbiology deal with the manure where it fell. Get into making compost teas and spraying techniques to accelerate plant growth and the biology in the soil so it becomes even more productive. Add legumes, higher succession grasses, forbs to your seed mix (each extracts different airborne nutrients) to build up soil health. Include turnips, carrots, any tubers in that mix. Avoid leaving bare earth, leave a plant residue (humus) on your paddocks to protect, cool & retain water in the soil.
I don't know their context but sometimes compromises are necessary. For example, I think a huge reason my neighbor moves the cattle to a nearby feedlot is because the road to the main pasture is only seasonally accessible. Tilling might just be a stand-in until they get chickens to do the work. Or maybe they don't want to mess with chickens. There are many approaches and lifestyle has to be included in the calculation.
@@cletushatfield8817 Understood. But the soil, it's health, microbial activity, worm population, etc. is the main game in all farming. Hence the comment.
@@peterclark6290 From what I understand (little) the depth of tilling matters. There's an enormous difference between a 1" depth and an 8". I suppose a compromise in this video might be to skip the tilling and just use the drag. Probably easier to just get a mobile chicken coop and 12 birds. Personally, I'd be avoiding bare dirt like the plague.
@@cletushatfield8817 Sounds on track, let the soil do what it does best. It's worth your time taking in TH-cam advice from Gabe Brown, Joel Salatin, Ray Archuleta, or Drs. Elaine Ingham, and David Johnson. Cheaper in the long run too.
Ground is already churned up. I suspect he uses the rototiller because that is what he has. Probably only using to level the top few inches for the seed.
You are basically using the Norman Three Field System that has ensured fields around my village have been continously croppoing for over 1,000 years.
huh who knew!
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience not you?
@@rosewhite--- nope but im looking it up now, thanks for turning me on to it!
When people talk about rye, I don't know if they are talking about rye grass, or the type of rye that is used to grow the cereal grain. I'm assuming this is rye grass.
Do you think that the iberico pig would be a forger like this one?
What type of rye and when was it broadcast?
at first I thought you were a bs'er, then you revealed your sources from a mature man who appears to be successful at this.
Thanks for watching. You can find more videos on the Bakers Green Acres TH-cam page. We have been farming for few years. :)
rye grows like weeds here too
Hey Joe
Howdy, mind if I ask, what camera do you use for your videos??
Yeah! the Gh5 and sigma18-35 lens for the most part
seriously, solid field rotation at its best. I've been looking at doing something similar for cattle but this guys efficiency is insane. doing this dwarfs the USDA statistics for necessary land allotments for per capita prediction.
Thanks for watching!
Are you talking about rye grass or cereal rye?
Why even till it? Id just broadcast and run the drag over. Pigs are so good at tillage that folks used to use them to clear land and prep fields. It's been proven that no till is better for soil health anyways. I guess it would make sense if its hard packed though.
We have done that before. Mark chooses to till now just to get rid of some of the craters and incorporate the manure and left over organic material into the soil a bit faster. But you are correct that broadcast and drag can be used as well. Thanks for watching!
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience yea i have noticed that tilling manure in does seem to make it available a little faster. And pigs do make some huge holes sometimes. I've got a barrow right now that I've let grow out near 500 lb and he is making holes you could park a car in 😂
Not sure if no till if pigs are tilling
@@knoll9812 yeah that's true. I would consider pigs to be light tillage though. Especially because if they are on a big plot they don't compact as much as a tractor or whatever can do.
green forage, like what you're weighing, is between 80 and 90% water. If you cut it and dried it to 15% moisture hay you'd have about a ton of hay off your quarter acre. Cut, baled and stacked on a buyers trailer, that ton of hay is worth about $150.
Pigs do eat green grass, and a lot of folks claim to have raised their pigs on "pasture", and in fact some breeds of pigs do pretty well - american guinea hogs, for instance. kune kune hogs. But not mangalitsa. Feed 'em a complete ration and give them access to forage, super. Feed them on forage alone, particularly a quarter acre of forage, and you'll have bare ground and skinny pigs pretty quick.
Hi Bruce, Thanks for sharing your experience. I recommend you view our other channel Baker's Green Acres - Our managlitsa pigs have lived off forgage for 10+ years. They do really good. We have 10+ years of documentation to support our theory.
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience So you feed your pigs nothing other than what is grown on the ground that you run them on? How many pigs are you stocking per acre? Looking at your growing season by zip code - 49665, it seems pretty short. Last frost is listed as june 2, first frost as sept 12.
@YogiHollowFarm
Something you might consider for your piggies.
Thank you! Will check it out!
@@YogiHollowFarm I typo'd your name, that's why you didn't see it lol 😆 (I fixed it tho)
20,000 lbs of fresh vegetation. Do you have numbers for DM (dry matter)? That's what calculations are usually based on when determining the amount of feed offset.
I don’t, we harvest it wet with the water so that’s the measurement I use.
greetings, guys, it's very nice that you are growing Mangalica , it is very healthy because it is rich in unsaturated fats, please tell me how much surface area is required per animal for this kind of farming system, thank you
You're completely wrong.
Animal fats are almost completely *SATURATED* fats
@Will Bass no this is not correct. It depends on the animals' diet. If they are pastured, it is unsaturated fat, if they are raised on grains, it is saturated fat
@@damonsaunders3776
Really?
You a doctor?
Mayo clinic website:
"What's the difference between saturated and unsaturated fat?
Saturated fat. This is solid at room temperature. It's found in butter, lard, full-fat milk and yogurt, full-fat cheese, and high-fat meat.
Unsaturated fat. This tends to be liquid at room temperature. It's found in vegetable oils, fish and nuts."
....."Saturated fat occurs naturally in red meat and dairy products."
Harvard School of public health:
"Saturated fat is mainly found in animal foods, but a few plant foods are also high in saturated fats, such as coconut, coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel oil."
@@willbass2869 Yes and both of you need to look up transfats and so-called sneed oils.
It's not the natural saturated fat that is unhealthy. You actually need a fair portion of it to absorb important nutrients like vitamin D and B (and yes, my vitamin D levels were 25% of nominal 2 years ago, I know).
Unnatural oils like palm oil is the true enemy. It's a non-digestable oil/fat that your body actually needs to combat. It prevents vitamin take up and many other negative effects. And guess what. It's everywhere. And since the invention of palm oil (and related bad foods) the amount of obesity has increased dramatically. Europe has the same problem, but to a lesser extend because the real food industry has a bigger foot in the politicians door.
@@damonsaunders3776 LMAO no. If it was unsaturated fat, it would melt at body temperature. Animal fats are saturated fats: the good kind. Polyunsaturated fats (trans fats) are no bueno.
You feed your pigs dirt? Most of the weight from the rye you weighed was dirt. How do you harvest rye with the roots on?
What kind of rye does he plant?
Excellent video!
Is the meat flavour gamey or fishy compared to commercial fed feed pigs? If you have a comparison...
Which plant can you named it
Specifically, what type of ryegrass is that?. The ryegrass that we use only grows about five or 6 inches and never seeds. Any information would be helpful. Thank you.
Just plain winter rye from the feed store. Nothing special. Have you had your soil tested? Good luck to you!
Does he use any other crops besides the rye and field peas?
Yes also use turnips. You can find additional videos on the Bakers Green Acres youtube channel.
northern michigan
Have you tried seeding on top of the manure without turning under to avoid tillage?
Sometimes it works to let the pigs do the tilling, and in the spring the frost will seed the rye into the ground. But sometimes they aren't as ambitious or leave the ground too pitted for good germination due to uneven water spots and so on. Thanks for a good question.
For other hogs that might not be as interested (say Berkshire), can you cut it down, throw it on a tarp, wet it, cover with tarp, let it ferment, and then feed it to them? Will they consume the fermented stalks and leaves of Rye?
Thanks!
Pigs eat anything
The fermentation of green matter is a little more complicated than that. From experience you'll end up with a mushy, rotting mess. All pigs will eat this stuff if that's their only choice. Give them two or three days and suddenly salad starts to look better.
@@TheAnyoneCanFarmExperience Last year, our pigs busted through a two-strand electric fence to eat "silage": lawn clippings rotting in a black plastic bag in the sun. Pigs are weird. :)
@@teebob21 which breed do you have?
@@Rick_Sanchez_C137_ We just had regular old commercial Yorkshire piglets that otherwise would have went to a CAFO
Not knocking what you’re doing at all but measuring yield on a dry matter basis is a far better compass as you’re dry matter yield was probably closer to.06 pounds per square foot.
How many pigs can you keep with that quarter acre
Is rye for the Mangalica pigs only? Or can you feed to any pig?
Mangalica pigs do really well on it and will utilize the rye better than most breeds but any pig will eat and enjoy the green grass
where do you relocated the pigs when you used their field with manure?
The larger field is broken into 3 sub fields that the pigs rotate through. Thanks for watching!
I would love to do this with my land. I currently have 15 acres and two are given to my couple of Kunekune pigs. I'm hoping to get a set up for my pigs similar to this.
How can get it that seeds am in Kenya
What kind of rye is it?
Would the pigs eat johnsongrass the same way? I have 2.5 acres overrun with the stuff.
They'll eat it. But Johnson grass should be used before heading and not so much if stressed.
Johnson grass spreads RAPIDLY if the roots (rhizomes) are cut. Each piece of the root will regrow vigorously. Pigs rooting in Johnson grass field enhances it.
Best thing to do on Johnson grass is to mow or have cattle graze into an the dirt (nor recommended for cattle health btw) then no-till in a competitor to shade it out
"Tillage" of any sort makes Johnson grass infestation worse. You gotta mow/shade it to death.
Great question. We haven't dealt with Johnson grass per se, but have had similar plants that spread through the roots in our fields. It depends on the pig breed. When we had "conventional" pigs, they played at tilling and spread the roots around. The Mangalitsas have gone through the ground and strategically eaten the roots. To answer more thoroughly, Mark will answer your question in greater detail on the live show on Tuesday, February 1st. Hope you can join us!
So what else are fed to the pigs in their ration? Is this mainly their feed or are you feeding large amounts of grain too? Also what about stocking numbers and how often are they rotated?
They absolutely have to get a supplementary ration. Swine cannot live on grazed grasses alone, just as humans cannot live on a diet of just lettuce or spinach. That said...the pigs LOVE their fresh vegetables and graze! Ours busted through an electric fence just to eat a bag of grass clippings that the neighbors dropped off to me.
We also feed small grains in conjunction with the fresh rye, they love both!
Thank you very much for the reply. I know there are a few farmers out there trying to feed their hogs without bought in grains and feed. One of the main problems most of them have is meeting the vitamin and mineral needs, more specifically lysine. So I've been asking around to find out other people's experiences.