Marshmellows
200 Bales of Hay on the Landing,
200 Bales of Hay.
Take one down,
Feed it around,
199 Bales of Hay on the Landing…
In addition to those 200 bales we have another 100 coming from another farmer so this year I think we’ll finally have enough hay. As our herds have grown it has been a continuing struggle to find enough good hay each year. Hay is important to get our livestock through the coming six months of winter. It is summer pastured stored for winter much like the vegetable canning, drying and cold storage we do for our family. By spring they will have eaten up virtually all of the hay we put out.
Pigs Eating Grass and Pooping it Out
There is a myth that pigs can’t eat grass, hay or pasture. I just saw someone I respect actually write on her blog “Pigs don’t eat grass.” She told people that farmers who are pasturing are misleading consumers into thinking pigs can eat grass. She later changed it to “Pigs don’t eat grass exclusively.” but the damage is done. Her post title was the Definitive Guide but it is anything but that. Unfortunatly, she’s also promoting a number of other myth-conceptions. Shame on her.
Reality check: Pigs Eat Grass! In fact, they thrive on it.
These confused people reason that because pigs are monogastric rather than ruminants the pigs are unable to digest grass. This is false. It just means pigs don’t digest grass the way that cows do. There are many species that eat grass and even harder to digest cellulose (e.g., beavers). Some animals have four stomaches, some have two, some have one – There are many strategies. The fact is the pigs get a lot of food value out of grass.
Tammy Worth coming over to check me out sitting in her paddock.
Additionally, pasture is not all grass – there are clovers, alfalfa, shrubs, young trees and a lot of other forages. Cows, sheep and goats don’t just eat grass either. They too enjoy the above forages. In fact, sheep graze (ground) and browse (brush) while goats mostly browse (brush and trees). The reality is the pigs thrive on pasture as the majority of their diet and they can even do very well on just pasture/hay. They simply grow a little bit slower and are leaner than grain fed pigs. Pasture is lower in calories and lysine – a limiting amino-acid. We have raised several groups on only pasture/hay with no supplements, no grain, no commercial hog feeds. It works.
Most of the time we also feed dairy which provides lysine and added calories. Dairy also makes the pork taste sweeter. We grow and feed pumpkins, other veggies, apples and recently we sometimes get boiled barley (high in fiber, protein and minerals) from a local brew pub. But these things are a small part of our pig’s total diet. The fact remains, pigs do eat pasture, hay and grass and they can thrive on it.
Hmm… My boot doesn’t taste as good good as grass.
So what about the question of digestibility? Our pastured pigs really are out eating grass in the pastures and they do digest it. I know. I look at their manure both macroscopically and microscopically. I study their dung to know their health. I have taken the pigs apart and examined their entrails, looking at it in various places through their digestive track. It is very clear that the grass is being broken down and digested. Over the course of the summer our pigs mow the fields eating hundreds of thousands of pounds of grass, clover, alfalfa and other forages. Over the course of the winter they consume virtually all of the over 100,000 lbs of hay we put out each year. There is almost no ‘waste’ left in the spring for me to compost. It went through the pigs and the pigs grew.
The fact that the pigs thrive and grow is the final proof:
Pigs do eat grass.
Myth busted.
Outdoors: 40°F/22°F 1″ Snow in morning, Sunny
Tiny Cottage: 70°F/67°F
Daily Spark: The bleeding edge is where visionaries go to die.
In my college biology class, we were given a fetal pig for dissection, and accompanying lectures. Professor Stiers told us of how Pigs have the Caecum, analogous to our appendix, which allows for the digestion of cellulose. He said there was some speculation that our appendix used to be the same sort of organ, but was something “just hanging on by habit, and to give surgeons work.” Of course, there was a lot of stuff in that course that has since been disproved, but that seemed pretty straightforward.
A question, Walter. How many uses have you found for the plastic bale wraps you have in such abundance? Reading your posts, I’m sure you’ve found uses.
Interesting point on the Caecum.
We’ve certainly not found enough uses for bale wrap. The best use to date is insulation. They can be stuffed into bags and then they have a lot of air spaces divided up which works very well for insulating around things like the tanks. I would love to be able to unravel the bale rather than cutting the wrap off. That would make it even more useful.
Is they hay you feed an alfalfa or clover mix or just straight grass?
Like our pastures the hay is a mix of various grasses, clovers, alfalfa and other good forages. People tend to think of hay as just pasture and hay as grass but the reality is that most are a mixture of many plants. When we seed we mix about a dozen different species. This provides balance.
Do you prefer hay with a higher alfalfa content for added protein? It seems, from the little bit of reading I’ve done that alfalfa is a very good forage for pigs. I am wondering if your experience warranted the extra expense and effort (at least here in Wisconsin it seems like most alfalfa is chopped and bagged for dairy use) to find round bales with more alfalfa.
Yes, definitely. And not just alfalfa but also clovers. If you observe the pigs eating in the field you will graze the more tender younger grasses and legumes (alfalfa, clover, etc) first. These are easier to digest. Later they’ll go for the heavier grasses, eat seed heads, browse some types of brush, briars and such. They love thistles and burdock. We over seed, frost seed, our pastures with legumes among other things to increase the balance of those. This raises the protein profile of the pasture and it sucks nitrogen out of the atmosphere in addition to CO2 so that fertilizes our fields.
The round bales we get are mostly destined for dairy. Or they were, until we started buying them up years ago. Those are full of clover and alfalfa.
How sad that someone would publicise such drivel. Anyone who has read your blog knows that pigs eat grass. You have tons and tons and tons of photos of them doing it. Keep doing what you do and keep doing it so well! I am fortunate to live close enough to eat your pork (we buy it at onion river) and I absolutely love it.
In your winter pens do you put the bale in their bedding area for them to eat and let them spread it around for bedding? Or do you place a bale in a feeding area then put some hay down in their bedding area?
I have been gradually shifting my hogs over to hay, but not sure if the hay would be better utilized by putting it in their bedding area only. They seem to really just spread the hay around the pen if it is not in their shelter whereas it gets chewed on and laid on if it is in their shelter.
We mostly put the hay on the ground. We start now in the fall by building up a thick layer, putting it in faster than the pigs will consume it to get a thick bedding pack down. I use a cheaper hay for this first layer. Then we switch to only putting it out better hay as they eat up what is on the top layer. By spring the bottom bedding decomposes – providing warmth all winter. At some point I then add it to a compost pile.
We also have made some hay feeders. I’m still experimenting with that. They work well to store the hay where the pigs can come get it but it is easier to simply put out the bales. The bigger hay feeders can work as a creep for smaller pigs.
The easiest method we’ve found, quite accidentally, is to set the round bales up on the winter paddocks as wind blocks and then the pigs open the bales as needed over the course of the winter. The pigs are remarkably good at not wasting the hay with this method. It has nothing to do with intelligence or planning. They are simply lazy, basic behavioral physics – things and critters take the path of least resistance. They don’t want to do more work than necessary to get their food. The only disadvantage is that we have to pickup the bale wrap. I have yet to be able to teach the pigs to properly unwrap the bales, fold the bale wrap up and put it in the trash can’s I provide. We’ll keep working on that.
As an interesting note, our dogs also are good at self-feeding, er, gathering from a bale. They don’t eat the hay, they use it for bedding. I had put a bale up that I was intending to distribute between dog shelters. The dogs opened it and pulled out hay which they took to their spaces as well as making a nest right in the lea of the bale.
If after all that you still need more proof that pigs eat grass just have a look at the pig to the left of miss Tammy Worth. Grass in one end s**t out the other!!
As you know Walter, we are long time followers and students of your blog school. last summer during a pasture walk a visitor was SHOCKED to see our hogs eating grass. “My husband said pigs won’t eat grass!” Turned out her hubbie had been raising hogs for over 30 years…in confinement. She couldn’t wait to run home and tell him
You may have hit on a key there: it’s hard to eat grass when standing on concrete.
This reminds me of the words of our eldest grandchild when she was 4 years old: “Bears don’t have nipples!” upon being introduced to the concept of mammals :-). “Pigs don’t eat grass” is right up there with the four-year-old’s exclamation.
In my country this kind of bales would be used for silage, because they can be sealed airtight. I guess yours is dry hay, right ?
You can dry the hay to what ever level you would like and then seal it air tight. Sealing it plus the right amount of fermentation results in excellent storage longevity, sort of like sauerkraut. Over the years we’ve been fine tuning this for our pigs. With cattle they tend to use a wetter silage than we use for the pigs and sheep. When opened the bales smell fresher, not like silage and slightly alcoholly. On the other hand, hay that is square baled is much drier. I like having lots of the round bales (800 to 1,000 lb) because they’re easy to feed out large amounts with the tractor but also some small squares (50 to 80 lb) for hand work.
I was asking because I usually associate silage with clostridia, resulting in reduced life expectancy of cattle, and contaminated milk to boot.
Pigs are of course much more like humans, and will profit from a few servings of sauerkraut :)
You mention storage longevity – would a non-sealed bale of hay or hay in a barn have less of that ?
I hesitate to reply too deeply because I’m still learning too much about hay and don’t know enough about the deep details not to stick my foot in the wrong orifice. :) I’ve heard of various spoilage problems including listeria resulting from the wrong dryness or insufficient time in curing of the round bales. I’ve twice gotten burnt over the years when I mistakenly bought hay from a new source that gave us very bad hay. I’m very thankful for the knowledge and skill of the four good sources which I know of who have provided us with hay over the years. We buy all the hay one of them produces – he produces really good stuff, according to the opinions of our sheep and pigs.
Not a problem; you’re a wonderful source of information and encouragement :)I’m trying to get my hands on a piece of land at the moment, and will probably be trying to grow rabbits the traditional way.
There’s much to be learned in that regard, especially how to grow a pasture that will be capable of providing all the winter food for them – something very few people in “developed countries” will ever have attempted.
With the silage there’s one interesting bit I didn’t know:
Organic cheese makers in my country will refuse silage-fed milk, because only non-organic producers employ a technique that’ll turn this milk into something that (mediocre) cheese can be made of – they’ll use a centrifuge to get rid of (most of) the bacteria…
Huh. I had never heard of using a centrifuge for that! So mine is good for something else besides extracting Uranium. Possibilities… :)
Uranium! You’re a hoot- always up to something.
We have never used plastic wrapped bales, always just string wrapped. I love the small squares, as I can handle them on my own, but my husband is determined to use all big rounds next year, so that he doesn’t have to hand stack every one! So next year I will be unrolling them one at a time in the barn and loading wheelbarrows or sleds to feed- Luckily, I love my animals (and my hubby too!)
hi guys! just wanted to share this korean way of farming pigs. he used 20-30% fermented sawdust in his feed ration daily.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lfNDeUlZw_M
Interesting. Although I don’t like the confinement nature of the farm the pigs look healthy and like they’re growing well. Fermenting or composting the wood may make nutrients available. Out in the pastures the pigs do eat wood. They chew up brush, decaying logs, roots, etc so they may well be able to digest a fair bit of it.
Of course that pigs eat pasture and i think that the person, who wrote that pigs do not eat grass, never saw a pigs, except on tv. The things that i would like to bring to attention is that different species of pigs react different to the lack of grains: there are some species that will grow much slower without grains and there are species that will not have there growth affected so much by the lack of grains. The species that usually do not pass more than 120kg at maturity will not be very affected by the lack of grains.
In Romania some farmers started to grow Vietnamess pigs because the cost of grains is higher than ever.
By the way, what species of pigs you grow?
Good luck with your farm.
I agree that not all pigs do well on pasture but it isn’t a matter of a 120 Kg size limit. In fact, the bigger pigs graze better. Our sows grow to 800 lbs (~400 Kg) and our boars grow as large as about 1,700 lbs (~800 Kg) and they thrive on pasture. Ours are a mix of primarily Yorkshire with some Large Black and Berkshire plus a pinch of Tamworth, Glouster Old Spot and perhaps some other mixed in there. No Vietnamese Pot Bellied at all.
Thank you for your answer. I am amazed by the weight of your pigs. In Romania we have Duroc and the Great White as species that goes to about 200kg in a year and to about 350 in 2 years, but they need to be fed also with grains to grow so big.
Another reason that people in Romania started to grow vietnamess pigs is because its meat does not have so much “fat”, it is recomended (of course in small quantities) also to the ones that have health problems.
How long do your pigs need to go to 400/800 kg? In the first year of life how fat will it be?
Thank you.
Our pigs on pure pasture grow to about 250 lbs in about seven to eight months. They hit that weight in about six months on pasture/hay+dairy. The dairy provides extra calories and more importantly additional lysine, a limiting amino-acid necessary for building protein for muscle growth. They have about 3/4″, about 2 cm, of back fat, e.g., they’re fairly lean – not fat like grain fed animals which can be 2″ to 4″ of back fat on the pigs I see at the butcher from other farms where they feed grain.
On the primarily pasture/hay+dairy diet we use our pigs top out at around 800 lbs (sows) to 1,500 lbs (boars) after about six years. The 1,700 lb boar was an exceptionally large animal by the name of Spot. See this article for more about big pigs.
My understanding from reading research is that the fat of animals raised eating lots of pasture is high in desirable Omega-3 fatty acids where as the fat from animals raised eating grains is high in the not so good Omega-6 fatty acids. We are doing long term longitudinal research study on this topic right now. Details to follow.