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"You must be the change you want to see in the world." "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." --Mahatma Gandhi
"Preach the Gospel always, and if necessary, use words." --Francis of Assisi.
"Family farms work when the whole family works the farm." -- Adam Klaus
mike clark wrote:sustaing pigs on just pasture in my opinion is a myth
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Adam Klaus wrote:I feel your pain with the feed bill. No easy solutions there.
It seems to me, IMHE, that pigs are ecologically suited to moist climates. Like the Southern and Eastern US, where forest means a totally different thing that anywhere west of the Mississippi River. Our 'forests' lack the moisture to generate the productivity that could actually grow and sustain pigs. Not enough bugs and grubs in the arid west. We can range our pigs in our forests, and the pigs enjoy it, but certainly cannot eat enough there to constitute more than a supplement. So we get stuck feeding high value milk, or expensive grain feeds. It is a losing proposition. Its a game I have already lost, and given up on for now.
I have lush irrigated clover pastures, and native oak woodlands on my small farm. Nevertheless, pork is the most expensive meat I have raised. In terms of cost to produce a pound of table meat, I have found that grass fed beef is cheapest, then chicken, then rainbow trout, then turkey, and pigs last of all. I dont raise pigs or turkeys anymore. In a different region of the world, this order would certainly be different, even potentially reversed completely. The key to good farming is fitting the the species to the environment. It is cheap to raise some things some places, and expensive in others. That's why books can be so frustrating and deceptive, their advice might be great in their region but irrelevant in another.
What are the ecological assets on your farm that you can play towards? That is the path to a solution...
The important thing really is that they are still growing and don't look sunken or thin. Back in the day, they say pigs were set loose and fed a bit of corn each week or so just so keep them around when it came time to fatten in the fall. They don't grow as fast as they would on full feed but they still grow.
Keeping breeders can get expensive. I would consider finding feed in bulk if possible, by the ton. It will save you at least a couple of hundred dollars a year. That being said selling registered piglets, as breeders, can be very profitable.
Lastly get your pigs in the woods ASAP. I don't know what you have for a forest, but regardless, it will reduce your feed costs some. I would recommend dividing it into smaller paddocks, 1/2 or even 1/4 acre. This will allow each paddock plenty of time to regenerate and eventually increase the carrying capacity of the land.
Very informative Bob, thank you!I hope this and my other post on your other thread help some.
R Scott wrote:I listened to a podcast with someone (I think it was Mark Shepard from Restoration Ag, but not sure) that said he fed them basically survival ration--it was only a cup and a half of feed (or maybe 3, twice a day). He fed them that much from weaned until slaughter. It was enough to keep them from losing weight in most conditions, and any additional was from foraging.
We had a source for whey, but unfortunately it was heavy in the summer and non-existent in the winter. Couldn't feed it fast enough in the summer, but they didn't really need it on pasture; and it pretty much stopped about the same time the acorns got cleaned up so we had to feed the winter or they lost weight. I wanted to get it figured out how to time farrowing so we would feed them young and they would fatten out on free feed, but got tired of fixing fence.
I would suggest pasturing them during the day and then only feeding any additional supplement in the late afternoon or evening. This way they fill up on pasture which is essentially free, you pay the real estates taxes either way. It will take them time to get used to this pattern.
It takes time to improve the pasture. Look what you can plant that is right for your climate. Kentucky Bluegrass is a good grass. Lots of different types of clover, alfalfa, trefoil, brassicas, rape, sunchokes, pumpkins, sunflowers, beets, turnips are some of the things we plant on our 70 acres of pasture. Annuals like the pumpkins are concentrated in the winter paddocks. Brassicas, legumes and such are summer pastures. We use managed rotational grazing with our ~400 pigs and we buy no commercial feed for them. In addition to the pasture we give dairy, primarily whey, a little bit of spent barley (would love more), apple pomace in season (crushed apples from cider making), etc. See:
http://SugarMtnFarm.com/pigs
This keeps the cost of feed to a minimum. The piglet, feed and processing are the three primary costs of getting a pig to the table and about evenly divided between those.
I figure about 10 pigs per acre is sustainable on our pastures. That will vary with your soils, pasture quality and any supplemental feed. See:
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2007/10/12/how-much-land-per-pig/
and
http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2005/08/31/keeping-a-pig-for-meat/
We do raise them year round, delivering to stores & restaurants weekly as well as to individual customers. Winter is a LOT harder than the warm months here in the mountains of northern Vermont. This will vary greatly with climate.
Grow slowly and aim for quality, let that be your niche.
John Polk wrote:I would like to make a couple points here.
First, neither the Large Black, nor the Tamworth are 'endangered species'. Truly, neither are nearly as common as they were at one time, but not what I would call endangered. A cross between them is not a breed. From what I have seen, that is not too uncommon a mix...probably a good mix, taking the strengths of each. But basically, a barnyard 'mutt'. And, there is nothing 'wrong' with a mutt. Just don't expect to get top dollar for 'breeding stock' out of a barnyard mix.
Secondly, if you are struggling to keep them fed now, you better find an answer before they breed. Once she is pregnant, her feed/nutrition requirements will soar upwards. It will not diminish until they are weaned. At that point, you will have a dozen or so to feed (or sell/slaughter). If proper nutrition is a concern now, I feel that it is unwise to even consider breeding. The nutrition requirements of a breeding stock are much higher than those of maintenance/market stock.
I wish you all of the luck in your endeavor. We need more small scale breeders to help supply a growing demand for something better than 'factory pigs'.
mike clark wrote:just get simple.old produce,bread and bakery goods,i get dairy grain screenings for half of grain prices.past due milk products,dont be afraid to ask around.sustaing pigs on just pasture in my opinion is a myth.just look what wild pigs do to crops.most of the pork producers that would like you to belief what they feed are not telling whole truths.proof is in the pigs,try it the in way and when that fails go old school,put my pork up against anyones,most important my friends and family love it.and I can sleep good telling whole truths.best of luck.
Renate Haeckler wrote:I've got pot belly pigs, AKA "Asian Heritage Hogs" when you plan to eat them.
Mine will devour clover, and even with my current paddock rotation, the clover can't grow fast enough to keep them all happy, so I guess they'd need larger paddocks than what I have. I'm giving mine about 4 cups of soaked oats a day per adult-sized (or nearly adult-sized) pig, plus all the grass they can graze. On less than that they lose weight, or the nursing mothers do at any rate. When you feed the herd, they all eat as much as they can until the food is gone, so the mothers, with the highest nutritional needs, get the least food per bodyweight while the babies get the most. It makes the moms pretty skinny by weaning time. But after I wean the babies they gain it all back pretty quickly.
I was just doing some math - I go through 1 50# bag of oats a week with mine - 3 mature sows, 1 boar, 2 around 9 months (ready to slaughter but the temps are too high so we're waiting), 2 @ 4 months and 11 little babies.
The adults are the most expensive to feed, using about 10 bags of oats per year, each. I need to cull, hard, LOL because that's where my $$ is going.
The babies eat no food the first 2 weeks, a negligible amount the next couple as they're still living off of milk mostly. If you average their eating up to 9 months where they eat the same as an adult, it comes out to just 3 bags of oats to grow them from newborn to adult. At $22/bag that's only $66 per pig but mine are pot bellies so they only give around 50lbs of meat each. Still, close to $1/lb for pasture-raised, non-GMO fed isn't too bad, unless you add in the costs of keeping the parents, that is. Of course you can sell extra offspring - around here the prices vary by color - pretty ones can easily go for $50 each but the plain ones are hard to get rid of. Every week you have unsold piglets costs you to feed them and as time goes by the price goes up with the increasing amount they eat.
I just read an average apple tree gives 480lbs of fruit a year. It lacks protein so it can't be a total pig ration but it sure does give calories and other nutrients to help supplement their diets. I tried planting a couple apple seedlings in the pig paddocks, and they really like the foliage - they broke down the protective fence and ate all the leaves off of one of them, haven't discovered the other one yet. And they're not starving, their pasture is lush with grass and some weeds. All summer mine are getting a bucketful of apple thinnings/drops per day in addition to their oats and pasture.
Ari Mattathias wrote:
Here's my challenge- not enough land (11acrs 85% forest) to pasture/farm the amount of pigs required to routinely turn a sustaining profit
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I think this is the nut of the problem. With 11 acres of land, in a dry summer climate, you just wont have enough high protein forage to sustain a breeding herd of pigs. For a couple of years you could overgraze the area, but you will be taking more from the forest than is regrowing.
The key to successful farming is matching the environment to the farm operation. I raise dairy cows because I have 7 acres of top quality pasture. I raise 150 meat chickens because I have an orchard that cannot be grazed, yields lots of bugs and greens, and I have a supply of skim milk. I would rewind your thinking, and consider what your natural surplusses are on the land. Match that with a properly scaled animal business.
good luck
Studies are showing that pigs fed diets of only GMO grains are having cysts, abnormal growths etc
mike clark wrote:gmo pork tastes so plain
Ari Mattathias wrote:Here's my challenge- not enough land (11acrs 85% forest) to pasture/farm the amount of pigs required to routinely turn a sustaining profit
Walter Jeffries wrote:
Ari Mattathias wrote:Here's my challenge- not enough land (11acrs 85% forest) to pasture/farm the amount of pigs required to routinely turn a sustaining profit
That is enough land to do a lot with. I find that I can raise ten pigs per acre sustainably in our climate which is the mountains of northern Vermont. I buy in winter hay and I supplement with whey. I have the land to do hay but not the time or equipment. I grow sunflowers, pumpkins, beets and such in the winter paddocks - winter is close to a third to half our year depending on the year. How much you supplement and your climate determines how many pigs per acre.
Like you we were mostly forested. A hundred years ago it was mostly fields, rocky and not tractor-able but fields. We cut back the forest to the old stone walls in some sections to regain the old fields and planted a mix of grasses, legumes and other forages using frost seeding. We've done this in two stages over the decades. I don't bring in a bulldozer but just flush cut the trees, sell the timber and seed. The timber pays for seed and fencing. I left line trees and patches for shelter. You have enough land to do this. Nut and fruit trees are good choices to leave. Some spruce with low branches make good cover too.
We buy no commercial hog feed/grain. The vast majority of our livestock feed comes from our pastures during the warm seasons and then the hay that we buy in plus veggies and fruit - we grow a lot although not enough to carry the full winter, yet. We plant legumes like alfalfa, clover as well as brassicas like kale in our fields to boost the protein. Digestibility is key. Not all high protein forages are equal for this reason.
Young pigs do well on pasture with softer forages like clover and newer sprouted grasses. We also give them an extra boost of eggs as available from our pastured hens who also get no commercial ration/grain. The hens are turning pasture into eggs which is a near perfect food so technically a pig eating a pastured chicken egg is eating pasture! Cook the eggs to double the available protein.
Our soil is thin and the terrain is steep yet it works here. We do have plenty of water which is important. I started terrace our land back in the early 1990's. Many of those terraces are now acres of rich large gardens. We use some of these in rotation for our winter paddocks - the livestock eliminate weeds and fertilize the soil. Then in the summer these areas make wonderful gardens. I originally got livestock for their manure. Our 400 pigs on pasture grew out of that over the years.
Some of our land is still forest - we didn't clear it all. The dead wood heats our house and some neighbors plus we do sustainable logging. Variety.
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It's amazing to me how this one post has provided a treasure trove of knowledge, you all are awesome!
This dialogue has changed my perception and increase my confidence, now I'll have to get to work.
Walter, may I pry for a bit more information? It sounds like our environments have similarities. My forests are thick, trees close together, unmanaged for at least 15 years (some of my neighbors can tell me more about the property than I know which I really appreciate), steep terrain, slopes/hills.
The selective, sustainable logging and selling of timber sounds like this will help me to like you said pay for seeds and fencing, as well as slowly establish a breeding stock, perhaps get some more goats and if I have the capacity what I'd really like is to have 3 dairy cows.
I can't afford and don't want to take on debt for commercial equipment, so on a smaller scale if I want log and sale timber (self or with a friend or two), what would I need other than chainsaw and a wench? What do you use?
Sustainable logging - Intriguing. . Any books you can recommend on this? I had proposals from a logger but the 45% in savings could really help us get established. I'm thinking to utilizing his services for the really hard stuff, and do what I can do safely.
Hard boiled eggs - got this from your blog months ago, they love it!
Fencing in sloped forest/steep terrain - electric or non-electric? How does this work? I looked around for pics of your fencing, but can't find. Any tips?
Finally the seeds - sunflowers, pumpkins, beets, grasses, legumes, alfalfa, clover as well as brassicas like kale, do you buy in standard packs or is there a place where one could get these in bulk?
After you've logged, do you till at all?
PS- I like how you conveyed in one post, a properly managed forest. Someone thought it was forest that had never been logged, but in fact it had been, but it was well taken care of, that was great! This is what I'd like to accomplish where I am also.
Thanks again!
Ari Mattathias wrote:Walter, may I pry for a bit more information? It sounds like our environments have similarities. My forests are thick, trees close together, unmanaged for at least 15 years (some of my neighbors can tell me more about the property than I know which I really appreciate), steep terrain, slopes/hills. The selective, sustainable logging and selling of timber sounds like this will help me to like you said pay for seeds and fencing, as well as slowly establish a breeding stock, perhaps get some more goats and if I have the capacity what I'd really like is to have 3 dairy cows.
Ari Mattathias wrote:I can't afford and don't want to take on debt for commercial equipment, so on a smaller scale if I want log and sale timber (self or with a friend or two), what would I need other than chainsaw and a wench? What do you use?
Ari Mattathias wrote:Sustainable logging - Intriguing. I had proposals from a logger but the 45% in savings could really help us get established. I'm thinking to utilizing his services for the really hard stuff, and do what I can do safely.
Ari Mattathias wrote:Any books you can recommend on this?
Ari Mattathias wrote:Fencing in sloped forest/steep terrain - electric or non-electric? How does this work? I looked around for pics of your fencing, but can't find. Any tips?
Ari Mattathias wrote:Finally the seeds - sunflowers, pumpkins, beets, grasses, legumes, alfalfa, clover as well as brassicas like kale, do you buy in standard packs or is there a place where one could get these in bulk?
Ari Mattathias wrote:After you've logged, do you till at all?
Ari Mattathias wrote:I like how you conveyed in one post, a properly managed forest. Someone thought it was forest that had never been logged, but in fact it had been, but it was well taken care of, that was great! This is what I'd like to accomplish where I am also.
Please check me out. http://www.dandeliondreamspermaculture.com
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Nicholas Mason wrote:We are going to breed our sow this December and our plan for feeding to to set up a fodder system, mixed with forage and scraps.
As for fencing we had problems keeping them in the electric fencing, then we got one of the chargers that shocks at 24 joules. We don't have that problem anymore.
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Please check me out. http://www.dandeliondreamspermaculture.com
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Nicholas Mason wrote:Yeah they were trained to it, but pigs are smart creatures and like to test things. Our sow liked to test the fence by pushing the other pig into it. I have heard of other breeders having the same problem of pigs getting out. Especially during the drier months when electric fences are not a strong as other times of the year.
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Nicholas Mason wrote:Yeah they were trained to it, but pigs are smart creatures and like to test things. Our sow liked to test the fence by pushing the other pig into it. I have heard of other breeders having the same problem of pigs getting out. Especially during the drier months when electric fences are not a strong as other times of the year.
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