While we were feeding bread to the herd and weaner piglets this afternoon in the bright sun I snapped this most incredible picture of the clouds. I love photos of clouds. My father has a beautiful poster that shows many different cloud types and explains about them which I think he got from my grandfather. Someday I’ll learn the names and what they mean. On my to-do list.
That is about two thirds of a van load of bread which represents four ‘stacks’, 40 trays or about 920 lbs of bread in the back of our mini-van a.k.a. pickup truck.
I’ve mentioned before that we get organic goats milk whey, excess milk, cottage cheese, cheese trim. All of these are what are termed pre-consumer wastes that are excellent foods for the pigs. Together with pasture and hay they make up a varied and balanced diet for the pigs and chickens. Even the sheep partake. Recycling these food items into pork reduces the flow into the waste stream, helps the creamery and bakery and saves us money on feed. The pigs love it all.
Feeding only one type of feed would not be ideal but the variety does them well. I’ve run the numbers for nutrition analysis as well as having several years of being able to watch the animals grow in real life. All of these are excellent feeds and the dairy makes the pork taste deliciously sweet.
But everything in moderation. I have read and spoken with several people who just fed bread and had problems with the pigs getting to fat. I can imagine that is true if bread is all they eat but with it being mixed in as a portion of the overall diet the bread should be a good food. Not only that but the bakery outlet where we get dated bread it is almost totally wholesome fancy breads, whole wheat and rarely any of the fluffy white bread. Good stuff.
I have also read that some people have had problems with feeding just milk producing softer fat in the bacon. In the last three years of feeding milk, cheese and now whey we have not seen that. Again, that may be because the dairy makes up a portion of the pig’s diet rather than the whole she-bang. Our pigs get pasture and hay which nutritionally balance dairy very nicely. Variety is the spice of life.
Another difference I’ve noted is that all of the people I’ve spoke with who have had the above problems pen raised their pigs. The lack of exercise making for couch potato pigs may have contributed significantly to the excess lard. One solution in a pen situation would be to put the feed, water and bed all in different areas in the pen so the pigs have to get up and get at least a bit of exercise. With our pasture layout this is not a problem at all as the pigs are free to roam about two or more acres at any time. In fact, they have to walk about as their food, beds and water are widely spaced.
One irony in all of this is that our pigs regularly eat excellent quality cheeses and breads that I skip over in the store because they are just too expensive to buy. The pigs eat better than I!
So what are the economics of all this good bread that will feed our pigs for four days?
920 lbs of bread, 4 stacks, $20
1 hour time to go and get it
1 gallon gasoline at $2.50/gallon (~20 miles)
$1 wear and tear on the car
Actually, the time to go and get it and the petro, car wear, etc should be spread over other errands too but the bread was the primary reason for going in town so for the purposes of this math we’ll dedicate it all to the bread.
6 hours time to process
The time is four people about 1.25 hours to unpackage all the bread, put it into barrels and pails and then cleanup plus the time to feed out the bread over the next three days.
$3.50 trash bill to dispose of bread wrappers
Total cash outlay $26 plus 7 hours of time (6 processing & feeding + 1 go and get). How do you value the time? You must feed the pigs anyways and that takes some time so really it shouldn’t all be counted but let’s compare it to automated grain delivery and self-feeder so we’ll include all the time. Pick a number, any number, say: $10/hr -> $70 for the time -> $97 total cost for the bread.
That comes to 10¢/lb which is half the cost of bagged commercial feed (19¢/lb) and less expensive than the three ton bulk rate (17¢/lb) from the local grain mill. Organic feed is about 24¢/lb last time I checked. Those feeds can be fed as the only feed. I wouldn’t do that with the bread. I want the pigs also eating hay (in the winter or pasture in the warm seasons) as well as dairy to get a complete balanced diet. Still, it is interesting to compare.
Speaking of expensive, today I saw the above item for the first time. It is a pre-packaged single slice of bread. How bizarre! I could not believe my eyes. What is our society coming to when individual slices of bread are being packaged and sold? “Care for a sip of water or a breath of fresh air with that slice of bread, sir? Just an additional $1.99 each.” Of course, there are individually packaged pads of butter. Maybe I just need to get out more… Scratch that.
Outdoors: 31°F/14°F Sunny, Scattered Clouds
Farm House: 67°F/52°F five logs
Tiny Cottage: 55°F/48°F no work
Walter, thanks for all the great info on feed and cost-analysis. My 2 tams get bread, milk, grain and hay. They’re in an enclosure right now and maybe getting too fat, but they’re soon to enjoy some larger areas and I’m hoping they’ll trim up. So far all my bread and milk has been free. That’s cheaper than the grain, certainly. :)
Lindsay
we clabber our older raw milk for everyone. the dog, the layers, the broilers, father-in-law’s pigs, and even the cat. unused whey gets soaked in grain and makes for a morning farina for the chickens.
historically pigs have been the garbage disposal of the family. it seems that you have taken that to a more refined level.
i still consider us wasteful but we try to consciously get better everyday.
kudos to your farm for picking up the slack and making a better product from local waste.
hmm… packaged donuts, packaged “whole” wheat bread with a shelf life of months, if not years… “good stuff”? I disagree. Fit for no man or beast.
Still, I do agree with your thoughts on a varied diet. This year, we did our pigs on pasture, waste milk, and a wee bit of corn. They excelled and the cost was minimal.
Ben,
It is excess rather than waste. In the case of bread it is usually just a day out of the sell by date. I buy bread and keep it on my shelf for our consumption for weeks. In the case of cheese it is usually the trim, the edges of the blocks that they cut when packaging. We catch it before it becomes waste. The volume of such excess is amazing. We’ve talked about this a lot as we un-package loaves and such. It seems like there is such an amazing volume of food but when I calculate it comes out to be a fraction of a percentage point of production. The volume simply comes from the fact that they, the creamery, the bakery, etc, do so much volume. Even 0.5% excess comes to be a surprisingly large amount. it is worth checking around you for sources of such quality low cost feeds, especially for the winter when pasture is unavailable.
There are very few donuts and pastries in a load. I explained that. Frankly, I’m amazed at your snobbishness. As to the shelf life, these breads are wholesome whole grain breads with very short shelf lives. They’re made at area bakeries. That is the whole point. They don’t have a very long shelf life so they end up having to be withdrawn by the sell-by-date. They are still excellent quality and by catching them before they go to the land fill we get good feed for the pigs while keeping good organics out of the landfills. That is a win-win situation for everyone.
Cheers,
-Walter
Well I would certainly love to have some of that bread raised pork it is excellent. Sounds yummy like! The pasturing raising is just so much bonus to!
Ya no Walter 1 of the the things I like about you is you dont minse words!!!!!!
Walter,
Thanks for the frank reply. Snobbish. Hell, I’ve been called worse. I’ll take it.
Perhaps I was led astray by the photo, which seemed rather rich in sugary breadstuffs. In any case, I do not mean to belittle or demean your hog-feeding techniques. We should all be so confident as to live by our beliefs and values, as you obviously do.
My belief is to not feed my animals processed food, just as I choose not to eat processed food. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. I merely want to offer a differing perspective to your many and passionate readers. More than one way to skin a cat (or pig, as the case may be).
Ben, I see two packages of donuts in that photo and one package of eclairs. There were another couple of packages in the whole 920 lbs of bread making the pastries about half of one percent of the total. That isn’t very much. The vast majority (80%?) of the load was bagels and whole wheat english muffins in addition to some other breads like dark german, 9 grain, 12 grain, etc. All whole some good breads.
I agree; that isn’t very much. I think it comes down to differing perceptions regarding the nutritional value of your stash as a whole. I consider it junk; you consider it wholesome. Depending on one’s beliefs, these are both defendable positions. Hell, if you talked to two different nutritionists, you’d probably get two different answers.
I know from reading your blog that you care deeply for your animals and about the end quality of your product. If there were more farmers like you around, the world would be a better place. Enough said.
Sounds like excellent food to me. To bad theres so much packaging but glad you are diverting all that good food. I second Walters comment on snobbery.
Speaking as a livestock nutritionist what Walter is doing makes good sense. Bread is not junk in any sense of the term. From a recent study they said: “The researchers identified stale bread (509 metric tons/year), feed-grade potatoes (11,100 t/yr), and whey (12,900 t/yr) as the three primary underutilized sources of organic pig feed in Austria.” See this http://www.newfarm.org/research/jan05/pig_food.shtml link. Recapturing good quality feeds before it is wasted in the dump makes a lot of sense. Pigs sheep chickens and cows are all able to convert these into high quality meat for people to eat and that is a good thing. There is nothing junk about it. I must admit that I am quite curious about your blunt statement about the bread being junk because it is processed food. Do you eat no processed foods? Do you eat all your plant matter raw? What about meat? Don’t you cook that? That is processing? Exactly what is the processing that you object to so much? Chopping-Dicing-Grinding-Cooking-Mixing?BTW – Note that the corn you are feeding your pigs is probably GMO corn. That is to say it is genetically engineered. And, the milk you feed them is probably been produced using another GMO = rBGH.
D. L.
Ben YOU are VERY insulting!!!!! You sound so hoititoiti. Get of your high horse.
Add Maple Syrup, Sugar, Flour, Corn Meal, Salt, Pepper and other spices to the list of things that are processed. If you are not doing any processed foods for aniamls I take it your not eating any processed foods your-self. That does not leave much.
i just wish i could get free bread and milk for me and my animals both. heck of a deal.
Ben one thing your not taking into account is that in the winter in a cold climate like Walters it makes a lot of sense to get extra callories. What your considering junk is good because the animals need the extra energy to keep warm outdoors. If you just raise pigs in the summer time then you don’t have to deal with the issue of cold temps. Consider that. Bread with its carbs and calories help the pigs.
I have been feeding bread to our pigs for 21 years now. They love . We also feed other stuff and are now trying hay like Walt talks about. We sell our pigs into the gourmet restaurant market and they get excellent prices and chefs rave about how wonderful and good quality the meat is. Your off base Ben. Plus it is good to recycle and keep the good food stuff from being trashed. Thats good for the enviroment to.
I wouldnt worry about the occasional sweet in the bread. Walters got 40 big pigs and a little suger wont do them any harm. Afterall theyre eating all that good pasture. People sometimes miss the point that it is the quantity that matters. You can be on a diet but still have the occasional treat without any ill effect
Thanks for this great post. I have the opportuniti to get bread from a local backery for our pigs and chickens. I had wanted to make sure it would be okay. Frankly that whole thing about thing about bread being junk is rubbish. Like anything I just dont want to be eating to much or feeding too much.
We feed bread to our pigs as well, and the last racks of bread had those individual wrapped slices. I couldn’t believe it! There was more in money in the packaging then in the bread!
I am glad I am not the only one who thought that!
-Nicki
Hi Walter, I get all the food I need plus alot more for free. Organic multi grain breed, organic nonfat yogert, and veggies. What I don’t use I pass on to other pig farmers. Spread the wealth ya know. I do find that the pigs get pretty fat. The meat however is to die for. I get nothing but the highest complaments of the taste, and juiciness of the meat. The delemma I have is the cost of processing a heavier pig and throwing away all the trimmings. smoking, cutting and packaging are buy the lb. I fear that if I try and moderate there food more, the meat wont be so tasty and juicy. The first year that I raised a few pigs, they were lean and in shape. When I got the meat back it looked great, no fat, pink, just great. When we ate it though, the meat was dry and not that flaverful. The kids wouldn’t even eat the bacon, a sight I thought I would never see. 2 lbs cooked and no grease. So we are going with old faithfull, nice fat pigs. dan
What I would do is feed hay, pasture and other vegetable matter in the morning and then bread in the evening. This way the pigs will lower their caloric intake reducing the fat build up yet still have enough to produce the marbling that makes for the succulent meat. Bread is very high in calories. Great winter feed for when the energy is needed to fight the cold.
Use condition scoring to judge how to adjust the ratio of feeds rather than feed formulas.
Cheers,
-Walter
Thanks for your post. Very helpful.
We have just started on our second batch of pigs. Our first 2 we feed only bread and they turn out way to fat!! This time we are feeding them less and more greens. But i have also read that pigs should be allowed to eat as much as they what to grow faster? That they should be kill at 5 months our they just add on fat layers? I am thinking of feeding them heaps now. Then 1 month before killing putting them on a diet of just greens? What do you think about all this?
A diet of just bread would almost certainly be very high in calories resulting in overly fat pigs. For optimal muscle growth you want more protein that you'll likely get with just bred for the amount of starch calories in the bread. Pasture helps balance but then you've still got a limiting protein factor from low lysine levels. Dairy is high in lysine bringing this up. We generally slaughter at about six months but the age of slaughter for your pigs will vary with their breed, diet and weather conditions – e.g., pigs grow a little more slowly in the winter due to the cool weather.
how do you feed the pigs the bread is it dry because mine turned they nose up at it
You might want to bake the bread fresh daily, slather with garlic butter and serve with fried or boiled eggs for the maximum nutritional value. Seriously though, it takes some time for animals to get used to new feeds and if they’re getting all the food they want they may well turn their noses up at new stuff. We just get a little that we use for training. It is fresh and they love it since they get so little. It’s a treat.
Thanks for your response.
After reading all the posts I still need a bit of clarification please………
I have 2 Gloucester Old Spots and 1 Saddleback all 3 months old. I have managed to source a limitless supply of free organic bread (lucky me) and obviously am keen to utilise as much of this as possible. Usually they eat dry pig food bought from the farm. Would it be ok (as suggested here) to feed them pig food at one meal and bread for the other without sacrificing their nutritional needs? If I feed them pig food at breakfast will they be so hungry by tea time that they will eat it? – as previously posted they are indifferent at the moment!
You might instead take a tact of giving some bread and some other feed mixed at each meal rather than segregating. Let them clean up between meals before feeding again. Even with unlimited and organic bread I would not want to over feed the bread – watch those calories or you’ll have fat pigs on your hands. In either case, I would have pasture/hay freely available to them. Old Spots are rumored to be good pasture grazers. I don’t know Saddlebacks at all.