What grass should not be given to piglets. Pig fattening options

For a beginner pig breeder, feeding piglets at home is not an easy task. It would seem, what is so difficult? Bought and, know, feed. Yes, it's not as simple as it seems. Not everyone knows how to feed piglets correctly. Never achieve good results without special knowledge.

In order to get healthy and large animals as a result, for greater profits, it is necessary to take care of the piglets, as soon as they appear, to take care of them correctly. Newborn babies do not yet have a fatty layer, therefore, it is worth remembering that for their well-being, in addition to feeding, you need warmth, cleanliness, a dry and warm place, with good bedding, in the room where the piglets will be, at an air temperature of about 25-30 °.

Ideally, at least the first two weeks after birth, every 3 hours, piglets suck pig milk, which is why they are popularly called "suckers". With such nutrition, the risk of diseases among the livestock is reduced. "Suckers" grow better, gain weight faster. Sometimes, due to certain circumstances, feeding piglets by a sow may not be possible. There can be many reasons for such a case. The question arises: How to feed piglets without a sow?

There is an order of magnitude more dry matter and protein in the milk (in the first 3 days of colostrum) of a lactating sow than, say, in ordinary cow's milk. It is better digested and absorbed by young animals. Survival in this case increases. But if there are much more piglets than the sow is able to feed, or she simply lost her milk, or she died during farrowing, shouldn’t the “suckers” also die?

Every pig breeder is looking for a solution - how to feed piglets without a sow? To maintain the life of the young, it is necessary to find some kind of substitute, an alternative to mother's milk. There is a way to prepare such a substitute, which consists of:

• 1l. whole cow or goat milk;
• 30-40 ml of water (warm, boiled);
• 2y. Sahara;
• 1g biomycin or 0.04 g of biovestin;
• 10 ml of ferrous sulfate solution (1%);
• one chicken egg;
• 2.5 g of aminopeptide;
• 1 ml of a mixture of vitamins D and A (in a ratio of 1/2).

Warm the mixed ingredients to 39°C and this formulation can be given as an alternative to maternal colostrum.

Or another way: mix 1 liter of milk with 4 chicken eggs, 15 g of fish oil, 25 g of granulated sugar and 10 g of salt, heat it all up and feed it right away.

Not an easy task - artificial feeding of newborn piglets, it requires adherence to the regime, patience, skills.

Some construct an artificial uterus from improvised material, others simply feed from the nipple. You need to make a decision - how to properly feed the little piglets in your situation.

In time, from 1-2 weeks, it is necessary to start feeding the young in order to develop the habit of eating properly in them, otherwise, as they grow older, they will leave the thick, drinking or sucking the liquid out of it. So - the addition of charcoal, chalk, hay dust, turf, red clay in the trough, starting from the first week, is necessary for them to receive mineral supplements.

Milk porridges (barley, oatmeal, etc.) are introduced into the feeding of monthly piglets at home as soon as the young animals learn to drink water and eat mineral supplements on their own. Milk for cereals can be replaced with skim milk, powdered milk, additionally fed with vegetables and fruits, starting with mashed apples and boiled potatoes in the form of mashed potatoes.

A little later, carrots are added to the diet of piglets from 1 month old, and greens and grass in the summer. You can buy a milk replacer for piglets, for example:

1. Fidolux.
2. Lactose is a food additive.
3. Milk dry whey.
4. Powdered milk for piglets.
5. Select SEC 60 concentrate (protein, soy).

All these additives, like boiled potatoes with milk, contribute to rapid weight gain. Usually, by the end of the milk period, after 2-2.5 months, the average weight of a piglet is 25 kg.

Advice:

To avoid diarrhea in small piglets, the feeder must be thoroughly washed and removed 15 minutes after the start of feeding (even if there are remains of milk and uneaten food in it). In addition, hungry pets will eat better next time.

So that plaque does not form on the dishes, putrefactive bacteria and fungi do not appear, it must be dried, in the summer - in the sun, in winter - in the cold, and at least once a week washed with laundry soap, doused with boiling water.

If you decide to buy powdered milk for piglets, and if you have a lot of piglets, not one or two, you can immediately purchase a bag weighing 25 kg, there are specialized types of such milk.

Proper feeding of weaners

The turning point for piglets is the period when they are weaned from sow's milk and transferred to "dry" food. During this period, they have a decrease in appetite, a decrease in growth and development, and a deterioration in digestive functions.

An amateur pig breeder should not immediately be afraid of this, it is simply necessary to properly adjust the feeding of weaned piglets in order for this process to give its positive results.

The amount of food consumed during this period should first be reduced by 20-30%. The level of feeding is adjusted to the norm within a week. It is good to give fish oil to piglets during this period to increase appetite and vitamins (A and D). Animals should also be irradiated with ultraviolet light. They are fed at least 3-4 times a day, in the presence of succulent and roughage in the diet. Read more about the necessary vitamins for piglets.

Even a small stomach is not able to digest a large amount of food at once. The effectiveness of further fattening of weaners depends on proper feeding.

Only fresh, crushed feed (not allowing it to go sour in the summer) should be in the feeder of such piglets. Whether it be potatoes, boiled and chilled, mixed with concentrates, or root crops, green fodder, which, moreover, must be “scalded” with boiling water. At the age of 2-4 months. piglets are very demanding on the usefulness of their nutrition.

dry feeding

During this period, you can purchase a complete feed for piglets 2-4 months, rich in protein and fiber. It consists of:

• soybean cake;
• corn;
• bran;
• wheat;
• monocalcium phosphate;
• barley;
• fish flour;
• vitamin and mineral premix;
• sunflower cake;
• salt;

If you are a supporter of "dry" feeding, you should not forget that feeding piglets with dry food requires the presence of water in the drinkers.

Thanks to expansion, any compound feed is disinfected, its nutritional value and taste are increased. You can buy feed for piglets and, thus, simplify your task of feeding them. And you can cook it yourself. Read how to cook compound feed yourself.

The period of 2 - 4 months is a period of intensive growth of muscle and bone tissue, otherwise it is also called the supplementary feeding period, when piglets should receive a variety of foods, special additives are needed in the diet to increase their appetite and growth. Piglets should eat plenty, but it is worth remembering that overfeeding piglets entails their early obesity, due to which pigs may stop growing (in length), only the carcass grows. Normal weight gain during this period is 400-700 g.

Advice:

For the sake of preventing early obesity, the correct, full development and growth of piglets, they need walks. So that the pigsty does not turn into a “pigsty” - in a figurative sense, it is advisable to separate the “dining room” for pigs in the room with a partition.

Feeding liquid or wet

In addition to dry feeding, there are also feedings - liquid and wet. If the type of feeding is chosen - liquid, it is important to properly prepare the feed. In their preparation, you can use yogurt and waste from the kitchen. When choosing wet feeding, mixers are used: boiled potatoes with greens, vegetables, cake, human food waste (from the table).

combisilos

Combined silage is eaten well by pigs. It is prepared from chopped vegetables and herbs: beets (sugar and semi-sugar), carrots, lupins before flowering, cabbage, legumes, corn greens (milk-wax maturity). It should be noted that moldy silage, like nettles with tops of melons and root crops, is not suitable for feeding livestock.

The crushed combisilos must be prepared correctly, carefully tamping, for example, in plastic bags, thus displacing the air. Such a preparation is a kind of canning of vegetables and herbs that animals will use with pleasure in the autumn-winter period.

Yeast

It should be remembered about another type of food enrichment with vitamins in the diet - yeast. By adding baker's yeast to the concentrated feed, in a non-paired and spongy (starter) method, you can count on improving appetite, rapid growth, and mass accumulation in animals.

With the unpaired method, yeast (100 g) is added to 20 liters. water (40 0C), mixing, pour dry food (about 10 kg), the whole mass is mixed every half hour. This feed is fed after 7-8 hours of fermentation.

With the help of a pre-prepared starter (100 g of yeast per 5 liters of warm water and 2 kg of compound feed), which should be infused for 6-8 hours, a sponge method of preparing yeasted feed is performed. The rest of the water and feed (15l and 7-9 kg) are added to the dough. You can feed such food after 1-2 hours.

Adviсe:

1. As for potatoes. Raw potatoes in the diet of piglets cannot be. Potatoes must be washed and crushed in boiled form. Water, after boiling potatoes, is not suitable for consumption by piglets, as it contains a toxic substance - solanine.
2. In raw form, you can give carrots, gourds, beets. By the way, if you boil them, the water remaining from cooking, in this case, is an excellent addition of slurry to the general animal feed.
3. Hay, cereal stalks (in crushed form) and hay dust are steamed for several hours.
4. It is undesirable to feed unprocessed grain in any form. It is not digested in the stomach, it is excreted entirely in the stool.
5. Do not forget about harmful and poisonous plants that should not be allowed in the diet of animals, both raw and boiled - these are black nightshade, dog parsley, spurge, caustic buttercup, pikulnik, castor bean, cotton plant, hemlock, horse dill, etc. .

Feeding piglets from 1 to 6 months is a complex and time-consuming process, everything needs to be remembered and learned in order to prevent mistakes and the “case” of livestock.

Feeding from 4 months

Pigs that have reached a weight of 50 kg begin to be fattened according to a special diet, depending on what result you want to get in the end. Three feeding options are being considered:

• meat;
• fatty condition;
• with layers.

The rate of weight gain during this period is 650 - 700 g. By the age of six months, a pig usually reaches a mass that is approximately equal to a centner, or even more, about 4-5 feed is consumed for each kilogram of weight. units

As a rule, pigs are kept at home "single", but there are also amateur pig breeders who raise a queen pig to increase the number of livestock and their further sale. Pregnant and lactating sows need special care and balanced feeding.

Sow and boar care

After farrowing, the uterus is watered only clean water, without giving food for about 5 hours, then they give a concentrate in liquid form in a small amount (0.7 kg), gradually, with each new feeding, increasing the volume, bring it to normal. All this must be observed so that the excess of accumulated milk in the body of the pig does not lead to the disease of the animal.

Unlike pigs, boars need different care (they need to be castrated at the age of 0.5 - 1 month) and feeding, they need even more food, but overfeeding and underfeeding are also not necessary for them, so that the male is always “in tone” and could perform their sexual functions. Read more about castration of piglets.

Conclusion (tips):

1. For good growth and rapid weight gain, pigs should be fed ad libitum.
2. When buying animals, you should pay attention to their pedigree. It is advisable to buy young animals from different sellers, which have already reached a weight of 6-10 kg.
3. Do not forget about the disinfection of the premises where the animals will be, observe the temperature regime and timely conduct the fight against rodents.
4. By following the rules of rational feeding with high-quality feed, you can achieve the desired results and provide your family with meat products for the whole year.

The profitability of pig breeding directly depends on the correct feeding of animals and the rate of growth of their weight. To effectively develop a farm, it is important to know what and how to feed piglets for rapid growth. Rapid weight gain foods are at the heart of the home feeding strategy as they are a key factor in increasing pig stock.

The choice of piglet depends on whether it will be fattened or left to the tribe, but in any case, it is better to give preference to individuals of winter or early spring farrowing. In this case, the cub will be easy to raise on ordinary cheap feed - garden waste and grass.

For fattening, it is better to choose piglets that were born in spring or winter.

When choosing a piglet for fattening, it is also important to take into account its age: monthly babies are more easily accustomed to eating various foods. Many farmers try to buy piglets at the age of 1.5-2 months, because during this period they eat on their own and do not cause much trouble in keeping.

High-quality and fast fattening piglet:

• has a long torso, broad back and strong legs;
• when running, does not wheeze and does not suffocate;
• does not suck, has a good appetite.

Important. Pigs should not be purchased if they have rough bristles, flabby or wrinkled skin, a thick or drooping tail, poorly defined ribs, a drooping belly or hollow sides, and x-shaped, saber-shaped or elephant legs.

Choosing the right diet for fast weight gain

Fattening ends by 7 months, when the young pig gains about 90-100 kg of live weight. The daily gain is 500 g, at the end of the process - 70 g.

An important point is to get enough protein: initially - 130 g per day, at the end of fattening - 100 g. For such feeding, legumes, root crops, herbal green fodder and whey are used. It is also important to properly balance elements such as concentrated feed, pasture and silage.

For bacon fattening, boars castrated at 3-4 months, not castrated males, pregnant uterus and uterus on suction are not suitable.

Maintaining the Appetite of Pigs

To increase the appetite of animals, feed is prepared in advance - such measures are often necessary when fattening.

Before feeding, food is subjected to a malting procedure, which consists in pre-soaking concentrated feed with hot water at a temperature of 85-90 degrees. The duration of the procedure is about 4 hours. For 1 kg of cereals, 1.5-2 liters of liquid will be required.

Attention. If the pigs do not eat up the mash, it can be poured with pre-prepared oat milk. Improved food tastes better than regular food.

To prepare oat milk, pour 1 kg of oatmeal with boiled water at room temperature, mix and leave in a warm place for 3 hours.

Pig weight determination

If it is impossible to periodically weigh the animal, pig breeders use measurements of the length of the body and chest girth using a centimeter tape. This will help to find out the approximate weight gain for a certain period of time.

When measuring the circumference of the chest, the centimeter tape is placed vertically, passing along the back corners of the shoulder blades. To measure the length of the body, the tape is pulled from the center of the occiput along the upper horizontal of the neck, back and sacrum to the base of the tail.

In the video, the farmer shows the process of preparing feed for fattening pigs and piglets.

Raising pigs is a very profitable business. These animals are prolific: a sow can produce up to thirty piglets per year, each of which can actually fatten up to 120 kg and more. The catch is that good results are possible only with proper care, during which a lot of nuances must be observed. Improper nutrition will not only prevent piglets from gaining maximum weight, but also spoil the quality and taste of meat.

At the same time, from an economic point of view, pig breeding is more profitable than cattle breeding, since pigs need three times less feed per 1 kg of gain. To achieve the most productive result, it is better to give animals special compound feeds - however, this can be costly. An alternative is ordinary food, diluted with vitamin complexes.

It is better to start fattening pigs in spring or summer: in the warm season, pets will begin to eat everything that grows around them on their own. The food consumed must certainly be fresh: animals should not be fed leftovers from the last "lunch". Grains, vegetables and other plant products must be crushed before feeding: the pig's body can hardly digest large foods. Also, any hot foods must be cooled first.

Chopped feed - corn silage

Vegetables containing a large percentage of liquid (potatoes, beets, etc.) cannot form the basis of the diet, since a low protein content does not contribute to weight gain. The same goes for valuable amino acids. To compensate for the lack of these substances, it is necessary to add soy, fishmeal, barley, chalk and other foods containing calcium to the menu. In order for the stomach to better absorb food, it is better to add up to 40 g of table salt to food. You can purchase special supplements containing calcium, copper, sodium, vitamins A, D, E.

Important! The way of life of pigs for successful fattening is as important as the diet. Inability to move, unsuitable microclimate and other unfavorable conditions cause animals to lose their appetite. In the pigsty, it is necessary to establish good ventilation, leave enough space for the activity of its inhabitants. The room temperature must not be below 15°C. In addition, it is necessary to separate weak and strong animals in order to avoid fights and causing significant harm to the former.

It is not recommended to give pigs waste from the kitchen in large quantities. If you still want to find a use for them, be sure to boil leftover food for an hour. Otherwise, pigs can get a lot of pathogens and get sick.

You need to feed piglets twice a day, not forgetting to ensure that there is fresh water in great numbers.

Three fattening technologies

The diet of pigs directly depends on the purpose for which you deal with pigs and what product you want to get as an output. Pig farming is done not only for gastronomic purposes, but also for the use of leather and bristles - however, there are no special requirements. As for eating pigs, there are three main areas in breeding:

• for meat;
• for bacon;
• for fat.

meat fattening

This technology is considered the simplest and does not require a lot of trouble. It is used if the goal is to obtain lean meat. It is necessary to start fattening piglets no later than three months of age and up to reaching a weight of 100-110 kg. As a result, at the time of slaughter, fat is no more than 30% of the mass of the carcass.

Feeding is divided into two stages. The first is carried out until the piglet reaches the age of six months, the second lasts a month and a half until slaughter. At the first stage, the piglet needs to gain 500-600 g per day. As a rule, this stage falls on the summer period, and a third of the diet of pigs should be greens, vegetables, herbs. In winter, this part is replaced by chopped hay, root crops, and animal feed. The remaining 2/3 are concentrates (mixed corn, barley, fishmeal, bran, etc.).

The second stage is more intense and involves a daily gain of up to 800 g. On it, 1/2 of the pigs' diet should consist of:

• potatoes;
• beets;
• legumes;
• food waste;
• dairy products.

The second half falls on concentrated feed with a nutritional value of up to 90%. As in the first stage, it is necessary to introduce supplements containing calcium and phosphorus into food (crushed chalk, limestone, shells, bone meal). The same applies to vitamins and trace elements.

The type of food you choose for your piglet will directly affect how it tastes when it comes out. For example, the presence of chopped fish in the diet will add the appropriate flavor to the meat, so at the final stage it is better to exclude seafood from the diet. also in last month it is necessary to limit the possibility of movement for animals and reduce the lighting in the pigsty.

Approximate calculation of the diet of pigs for meat fattening

The essence of this technology is to obtain an alternation of meat with layers of fat at the output. At the same time, the meat should have a special taste and increased juiciness, lard should be tender and fragrant. To achieve such a result is not easy: it requires strict control over the diet of animals. The resulting product is used to make bacon, bacon and other smoked meats.

Bacon fattening

Pigs used for this technology must have a wide sternum and back, since it is from the central part of the body that bacon is obtained. In this case, the weight of the animal should not exceed 100 kg. In this regard, special breeds are purchased for bacon fattening that meet all the requirements.

Important! A prerequisite for fattening for bacon is the castration of boars, which must be carried out no later than two months.

Bacon fattening is done in two stages. The first lasts up to 4.5 months and should provide a daily increase of at least 460 g. The second stage lasts up to seven months of age, the increase is 700 g per day. It is important that weight gain occurs evenly. If the piglet is only 5 months old and already has the required weight for slaughter, this will have a bad effect on the taste of the meat. The same goes for weight gain "late" - the meat at the exit will turn out to be too tough.

compound feed already includes all the necessary components, but if you prefer feed mixtures, the following ratio must be observed:

• in winter: concentrates - 62-67%, greens and vegetables - 20-25%, food of animal origin - 10%, chopped hay - 3%;
• in summer: concentrates - 77-80%, root crops and legumes - 12-15%, food of animal origin - 8%.

An example of the daily diet of pigs fattened for bacon:

• 3 kg of plant food;
• 1.5 kg of dairy products (recommended in large quantities to improve the taste of meat, but not more than 3.5 liters per day);
• 2 kg of potatoes, sugar beet or pumpkin;
• 20 g of salt;
• mineral and vitamin supplements.

Important! An obligatory part of the bacon diet is barley. It improves the quality of meat and lard and neutralizes the effects of other products that adversely affect the taste of the final product.

Fattening for fat

The result of this technology should be a thick fat layer, which goes mainly to the fat. Ultimately, the carcass should weigh up to 200 kg, contain approximately 50% fat and 40% meat. The width of the subcutaneous fat layer is at least 7 cm. Basically, such fattening is applied to old boars, queens that have lost their reproductive functions or did not initially have them.

Fattening continues for 3 months. If the pigs were initially malnourished and underweight, pre-feeding a high protein diet will also be required. During the first half of the term, pigs are fed in large volumes of root crops, hay and other plant foods, adding concentrates. In the second decade, juicy food is replaced by more high-calorie food - corn, legumes. Peas and barley are also added to improve the quality of lard.

How to choose piglets for fattening?

Fattening pigs - photo

There are breeds of pigs that are specially oriented to one or another fattening technology:

It is believed that the most suitable pigs for fattening are born from crossing several breeds. For example, an excellent bacon landrace pig in its pure form is too whimsical and capricious: it is difficult to keep it. However, by crossing this breed with others, animals are obtained with less exactingness, but the same meat characteristics.

Piglets should be purchased at the age of 1-1.5 months: very little ones require too painstaking care, which you do not need.

When buying a pig, be sure to pay attention to the following points:

• the normal appearance of the head should be as follows: medium size, wide-set eyes, flat nose;
• the piglet's ears should be tender, tilting slightly forward (but not closing the eyes). Excessive thickness of the skin on the ears is important, as it indicates the roughness of the skin on the rest of the body;
• for meat fattening, piglets with a narrow chest are suitable, however, it is better for “bacon” animals to have a wide one;
• the hooves of the animal should not have cracks and irregularities;
• the skin of a good piglet is smooth and even. In no case do not buy an animal with wrinkled, as if "old" skin - this is a sign of poor health;
• if the bristles bad condition, rare, bristling - such an animal should not be taken either.

After buying a piglet, do not rush to overfeed it immediately. It is better to increase the amount of food gradually. The baby's menu consists mainly of skim milk with the addition of feed and concentrates. The temperature in the room where the young animals are kept should be at least 18 ° C. One piglet should have at least 5 m of territory, and at least once a day, animals need a walk in the fresh air. After the piglets reach the age of three months, fattening can begin directly, and the conditions of detention become the same as for adult animals.

Video - How pigs are fattened

When you are going to raise pigs and have already prepared the room, you should think about feeding the pigs. In order for the animal to grow healthy, you need to choose the right feeding.

Every pig farmer wants his pigs to grow quickly, but at the same time spend as little money on food as possible.

1 What you need to know before buying food?

1. Pig age. This is important to know, as suckling piglets are fed differently from pigs, and feeding sows requires careful selection of feed.
2. Enough funds to buy factory feed. If funds are not enough, you can cook homemade food yourself.
3. Will it be possible to purchase quality premixes and mineral supplements in order to raise a pig. If the diet of fattening pigs is balanced and compound feed and feed additives for pigs are used, then the animal will gain weight faster.
4. Will you include grain in the diet of fattening pigs, or prefer to make do with root vegetables, grass and food waste from the kitchen.

2 Regime norms for feeding pigs

1. Feeding ad libitum. In this mode, feed is provided for piglets in unlimited access. This method is usually used to feed weaned piglets.
2. Normalized. With a normalized meal, food should be given two or three times a day. It is suitable for feeding sows after farrowing and for growing piglets.
3. Limited. Such feeding is to limit the amount of feed for pigs or give less fatty food using roughage. This type is used for sows in gestation (sows gain less fat).

2.1 Diet and feeding of pigs of different ages

For a pig to grow up healthy, you first need the right fattening for piglets and reverent care for them. After birth, they absorb mother's milk, but on the fifth day it begins to be insufficient for a growing organism. Is it possible to feed newborn piglets and how to feed piglets? This will be discussed further.

2.2 Feeding suckling piglets

Suckling piglets should be taught to feed from the 5th day after birth, as their teeth are already beginning to cut. You can give a little roasted grains of peas, barley, corn. Possible appearance intestinal problems. To prevent them from developing, acidophilic yogurt is added to food. It is also already possible to include charcoal, chalk, bone meal and special feeds with premixes in their diet. From the age of ten, piglets can begin to feed finely grated carrots, a little later they add a little pumpkin, beets and silage. Boiled potatoes begin to be given from the age of three weeks.

From an early age, small bundles of hay should be placed in the feeder for suckling pigs. If produce proper care for animals, they quickly begin to grow and gain weight, their weight can double in the first week. The pig must stop sucking and learn to feed on its own. by one and a half months to take the sow away from him.

Feeding sows is changing. To stop lactation, they are transferred to dry food and removed juicy. It is necessary to clearly know how to feed monthly piglets. Up to 55 days of age, it is advisable to feed the animal with a special mixture in dry form:

• wheat - 10%;
• flattened oats - 10%;
• soybean meal - 8%;
• barley - 32%;
• fishmeal - 19%;
• biofeed - 8%;
• return - 7%;
• corn - 5%;
• premix, salt and mineral supplements – 1%.

2.3 Growing gilts

Raising piglets from 1 to 6 months is a very responsible business. During this period, they begin to form the skeleton and muscle tissue. Then fat will be deposited on this base. It is important to decide how to feed the little piglets further, what kind of food - dry or wet.

By two months, a piglet can gain more than 20 kg of weight. It is good if the pig breeder correctly calculated the time of buying piglets, and the rearing of fattened piglets fell on the summer period. The abundance of green fodder facilitates the care and feeding of piglets. A real delicacy at this time is mashed potatoes added to the herbal mass.

2.4 Meat fattening pigs

First you need to decide for what purposes a pig is grown - for meat or for lard. And then what to feed the pigs and how to feed the pigs. For meat fattening, a 3-month-old piglet that has gained 25-30 kg of live weight is preferable. 4 - 4.5 months you will have to feed the pigs so that they gain weight(up to 125 kg and more). It was calculated how much the average daily gain in live weight increases - up to 650 g.

The better the pigs are fed, the better and healthier the meat will be. To fatten an adult pig and for rapid growth, it is better to use factory compound feed. The amount of compound feed should be at least 70% of the daily diet. The rest of the diet can be filled with ground rye, soybeans, oats, rapeseed meal.

How to properly feed pigs that are considered farrowing depends on their age and weight. Basically, their food is succulent feed, greens, potatoes, legumes and mineral supplements. It is important that chalk or limestone be included in the diet of sows for a large amount of calcium in the body. The lack of calcium affects the quality of fertilization.

How much feed will be spent on fattening is calculated by everyone, but on average it takes about 4 feed. units per 1 kg of live weight.

2.5 Feeding Vietnamese pigs

Vietnamese bellied pigs require certain knowledge, proper care and maintenance when growing them. Vietnamese piglets and pigs are unpretentious in food, but their diet must be carefully selected and balanced.

2.6 What to feed Vietnamese pigs?

The digestive tract of flip flops is slightly different from ordinary pigs. Their stomach has a small volume and a thin intestine in diameter. Because of this, their food quickly passes through the digestive tract. Loose-bellied piglets and pigs do not digest whole grains of cereals, coarse feed, hard straw, and fodder beets.

It is important not to overfeed when keeping Vietnamese pigs at home. Although they are omnivorous, the diet must be controlled and fed to promote fat deposition and meat growth. Be sure pigs must eat properly prepared compound feed. When fattening pigs with mixed feed of medium grinding, significant cost savings are obtained. It is very important to give vitamin feeds raw, they cannot be cooked. These foods include zucchini, pumpkin, hay legumes, carrots.

To feed the pigs, you can prepare feed of the following composition:

• barley -40%;
• wheat - 30%;
• peas - 10%;
• corn - no more than 10%, since its increase contributes to obesity;
• oats - 10%.

Pigs are fattened for a significant increase in meat and fat in animals. To obtain high-quality meat, mainly young animals are sent for slaughter. Young animals begin to fatten from about three to eight months.

From this article, you will learn what technology is used to feed pigs, and what products are best used for rapid weight gain in animals.

Pig feeding

It is advisable to start fattening young animals for meat when the animal reaches at least 90 kg of weight. Meat with this type of nutrition, the meat turns out to be tender with a layer of fat over the ridge no more than 4 cm thick. It is this kind of pork that is considered the most valuable in terms of taste and nutritional properties.

Note: When growing young animals for meat, half of the diet is succulent feed. Summer most pigs can be greens, but the maximum increase will be observed with balanced feeding according to the norms (Figure 1).

In summer, young animals are grazed until the heat (in the morning) and in the afternoon. Young animals are fed in the same way as sows, only taking into account the fact that grass in the diet of young animals is more than half. In addition, the grass must be crushed before feeding.

meat fattening

Among all farm animals, pigs have the highest growth energy. But it can only fully manifest itself when piglets receive balanced foods with sufficient amounts of protein, minerals and vitamins. An example of a diet for meat fattening is shown in Figure 2.

Note: Methods for raising pigs depend on the quality of the pork to be obtained.

Meat fattening is carried out when it is necessary to grow an animal with a high meat content. To do this, there are various methods and techniques.

Feeding of pigs begins at the age of 3 months when they reach a weight of 25-30 kg. This period lasts approximately 4 months. During this time, the animals gain 75-90 kg in weight.

All fattening time is divided into two periods: preparatory and main:

• The preparatory period begins at 3 months of age and lasts up to 5-5.5 months.
• The main period is only two months.

The first period is desirable to spend in the warm season (spring-summer) due to the presence of a wide range of green and succulent fodder. The range of voluminous products at this time consists of melons and root crops, as well as green grass legumes. In winter, the diet consists of root and tuber crops, different types flour, combined silage.

It is important to ensure that the diet of pigs during the preparatory period is saturated with protein (both animal and plant origin) and the most important amino acids (lysine, methionine, tryptophan), as well as trace elements and vitamins of groups A, B, D.

The lack of these substances leads to stunting of animals, their premature obesity and, accordingly, to a decrease in the quality of meat.

The second (actually meat) period differs from the preparatory one not only by changing the diet by increasing the amount of concentrates up to 90% in nutritional value, but also by a wide variety of food products.

If the first period is enriched with proteins and amino acids, then in the second period they feed carbohydrate concentrated feeds that are less saturated with protein.

Fattening to fatty conditions

When growing a sow to a fatty condition, one must also be guided by the norms. Mostly, feeds containing a lot of carbohydrates are used - beets, potatoes, barley, corn, etc.

Note: When the weight of the animal exceeds 100 kg, hay meal is introduced into the diet, although concentrates and succulent feeds also remain an important part of the diet.

In order to get a high gain from pigs, they are regularly grazed, especially in summer, and released for walks in winter. Food is given out 2-3 times a day in thick mash, but the animals are given plenty of water (Figure 3). It is not recommended to give fish and meat waste. Recommendations for keeping, breeding and feeding adult pigs are given in the video.

Feeding rates

Given that the goal of meat fattening is to obtain tender meat with a thin layer of fat on the ridge, pigs should be fed in such a way that their average daily gain at the first stage is 400-500 grams, and at the final stage - 600-700. At the same time, no more than 4.5 feed units per 1 kg of growth should be spent for the entire growing period.

The diet contains a wide variety of products: root crops and compound feed, food and grain waste, green mass and products from milk processing, fish and meat and bone meal.

It is with a rationed diet that promotes the development of appetite that it is possible to obtain the maximum gain during fattening.

The diet for pigs is shown in the table in Figure 4.

How much feed is needed to raise a pig

You should know that the growth and development of each individual depends both on the amount of feed consumed and on the regularity of feeding.

Therefore, depending on the breed, gender, age, the owner must be able to determine the appropriate amount of food. For its correct determination, it is necessary regularly (every month) and every age period measure the weight of animals. Knowing the weight of an individual, you can most accurately calculate the required amount of feed.

Note: For example, daily requirement in the feed of piglets up to 40 days old is 0.5 kg, while for feeding adults it will be necessary already 2-3 kg.

Feeding norms for a boar are much higher than for a female, and a pregnant sow eats 1 kg of feed more than a single sow.

As you can see, the feed rate is a relative concept, since in addition to the recommended costs, there are also individual characteristics of animals. Therefore, an accurate preliminary calculation of feed is a rather difficult task.

Pig diet

The diet of pigs mostly consists of concentrates, while coarse and succulent feeds are consumed by animals in much smaller quantities. These features of the diet are due to the fact that pigs have a single-chamber stomach, and therefore it is much more difficult for them to digest fiber.

With traditional wet feeding, the diet includes wet mash, consisting of food waste, boiled vegetables, herbs and grains. This type of feeding is more labor intensive and less efficient. Examples of food products for pigs are shown in Figure 5.

When fattening with dry products, various crushed grain mixtures are used with the addition of vitamin-mineral complexes and cake. If pigs are fed dry food, they need to drink plenty of water to protect them from gastrointestinal disorders.

Food should be given as much as the pig can eat at one time, since uneaten leftovers cannot be reused. This is especially true of mash, because they quickly turn sour.

A complete diet should include the necessary amount of vitamins. In summer they can be obtained from fresh grass, and in winter from silage. Dried nettles and needles are also a good source of vitamins.

Bread, fodder or brewer's yeast can fully satisfy the need of animals for vitamin B, and all dairy products are an invaluable storehouse of vitamins.

In general, the entire diet can be divided into the following groups:

• Components that provide the body with energy (cereals, corn, fat);
• Products containing proteins - meat and scythe and fish meal, beans, peas, reverse, yeast;
• Juicy feed - potatoes, cabbage, beets, green grass and silage;
• Various food and kitchen waste.

Ways to feed young animals

The age of the animal, its condition and the purpose of fattening affect the choice of feeding method: ad libitum, normalized or limited. Let's consider them in more detail.

ad libitum feeding

Such feeding of pigs is used when growing very small piglets weaned from the sow. At this age, they grow rapidly and gain weight, so food is constantly present in their feeder without restriction. Such feeding is the least profitable from an economic point of view due to the high feed consumption.

Normalized feeding

The normalized method involves feeding several times a day. This approach requires some experience as the pig's appetite needs to be constantly monitored and the next amount of feed to be determined based on the observations.

For these purposes, you need to know exactly which diet is preferred for pigs in different ages. In addition, the feeding ration differs in the direction of productivity.

Restricted feeding

Reception of limited feeding is used for pregnant sows and for meat fattening with a minimum fat content. It involves replacing succulent feed with coarse, and therefore less nutritious.