How To Grow Your Own Pig Food On Pasture 

Is this video meaning to claim that mangalitsa pigs can survive on a diet of solely just rye cover crop grass and no other supplemental grains? I’ve been on farms that did a similar intensive rotational grazing system which involved not just planting rye but a whole variety of diverse nutrient dense high bio mass cover crops…this is actually not uncommon in pastured pork systems: they all still supplement with other feed grains, minerals and even compost scraps. This video makes it seem like they are raising not just feeders but birthing pregnant sows on solely rye grass? 🤷‍♂️

2.03 lbs includes all the water in that forage. to get the dry matter (DM) weight, you gotta dry the sample out before weighing it. DM weight is more accurate when calculating forage. DM weight can also be found online for a lot of forages.

Just bought a 161 acre farm. Will be doing this for sure.

You’re ahead of your time don’t stop I learned a lot from you I have chickens I like to raise animals and I need more land I don’t require as much with that but it is important Florida Tennessee

I raise mangalitsa pigs. People tell me how intelligent and compassionate pigs are. I tell them pigs are as compassionate as a shark. I processed a five-month-old male yesterday, and his sisters were delighted to lap up his leftovers. Damned city Folk.

Imagine I’ve never owned a pig and never planted a crop - but I absolutely love learning these things. One day I’ll farm.❤

Thank you for explaining the cattle panel at the end and also thank you for the video!

Good info. We tried pigs for one year because we had problems with coyotes and bobcats when we had sheep. It was interesting. They eat so much, so growing some of our own food would be great. I wonder if there's something other breeds of pig, like basic Yorkshire, would eat that could be easily grown. Thanks for sharing!

I've seen a few comments asking about your stocking density, but haven't seen a reply to any. We raise pigs, but we're on a raw woodlot and using them to clear, till and level the land for us so we can sow pastures and gardens behind them. I'm curious how many full-grown sows you run on one quarter-acre paddock, and how long before they need to move again? This information will help me plan for next year ;)

wow this was in my feed? was thinking about this on the way home driving.

Suggestion: get some Regenerative Agriculture in your reading list. Roto-tilling loses a lot of essential elements, so rotate your animals in smaller paddocks (internal electric fencing is cheap, movable, you have control, animals teach themselves to stay away) and let microbiology deal with the manure where it fell. Get into making compost teas and spraying techniques to accelerate plant growth and the biology in the soil so it becomes even more productive. Add legumes, higher succession grasses, forbs to your seed mix (each extracts different airborne nutrients) to build up soil health. Include turnips, carrots, any tubers in that mix. Avoid leaving bare earth, leave a plant residue (humus) on your paddocks to protect, cool & retain water in the soil.

I see those push seed spreaders on craigslist free around me all the time if you want a broadcast spreader

Thanks for sharing. I love learning anything farm related. Still hoping to have a hobby farm some day.

at first I thought you were a bs'er, then you revealed your sources from a mature man who appears to be successful at this.

Not knocking what you’re doing at all but measuring yield on a dry matter basis is a far better compass as you’re dry matter yield was probably closer to.06 pounds per square foot.

green forage, like what you're weighing, is between 80 and 90% water. If you cut it and dried it to 15% moisture hay you'd have about a ton of hay off your quarter acre. Cut, baled and stacked on a buyers trailer, that ton of hay is worth about $150. Pigs do eat green grass, and a lot of folks claim to have raised their pigs on "pasture", and in fact some breeds of pigs do pretty well - american guinea hogs, for instance. kune kune hogs. But not mangalitsa. Feed 'em a complete ration and give them access to forage, super. Feed them on forage alone, particularly a quarter acre of forage, and you'll have bare ground and skinny pigs pretty quick.

Wow! Great information, thanks!!!

Very interesting. I just subscribed!

ThankQ

Is rye for the Mangalica pigs only? Or can you feed to any pig?

Sounds like good advice. What do you think about Kale?

I made a "Turd Buster" to spread out the manure paddies for my cows and pigs. He could use that cattle pannel rig that was shown at the end of the video to knock the manure around and spread the nutrients.

Didn't know Bert Kreischer had a pig farm!

Doesn't rota-tilling kill the soil life to put that manure into the soil? Is there not a natural way to get the manure turned into the soil?

How many days until harvest on that rye

Howdy, mind if I ask, what camera do you use for your videos??

i want to address something implied in a couple of messages below. Pasture raising hogs is suggested to get more yield from the property you have. Pasture isn't like corn or bean growing in that you don't have a defined planting season or harvest season and you, the farmer, doesn't have the issues of distributing food or storing what you raised. Is that really true? Is the pasture land you are using capable of making more nutrients if it was planted to corn or beans? What are the expected yields in your area? Raising a hog to 300 lbs. that is heavy for a commercial hog, will take roughly 1000 lbs of feed made of corn and soybeans mixed in a 4:1 ratio. This is for the main commercial breeds: York, Hamp, Duroc, not the settler breeds like the mangalitsa. The rate of gain will be such that the commercial breed hog will reach that weight in 6-7 months. The settler breeds will take 12 moths or more. 1000 lbs of feed is roughly is roughly 16 bushels. Around where I live, the average corn yield is 180 bu and acre. That would be 11-12 hogs raised from the feed raised on one acre. Can pasture feeding produce 12 hogs per acre in a year? Unlikely. We raised commercial hogs on pasture lots feeding a commercial feed we ground and supplied from our own farm. We raised roughly 400 butcher hogs from 40 acres of land year round. We are in Michigan, so pasture forage isn't available at least four months a year. Lastly, hog health is an issue. Hogs collect parasites off of open ground. Our preventive measures included moving the hogs to fresh pasture every two months and only using that area to raise pigs every second year. Even so, we wormed those animals with chemicals every season. Trichinosis is the worse because it depends on a part of its life cycle for being ingested by the pig. It is also one of the most harmful pathogens an animal can pass to human by eating the hog's flesh. Going to concrete floors has for the most part broken that cycle making commercial hogs much safer for catching trichinosis. It is not the only parasite to look out for, Ring worm, round worm and tape worms all have a similar life cycle process and inflict a lot of lost yield in hogs that are infected. Look at all the issues before pursuing pasture raised and fed hogs.

20,000 pounds? That is not much if it is humid. If it is dry, still low.

Don't you just love dimensions when it comes to math? A square acre is 208x208 (rounded) which is 43,264 sqft. So you would think that 1/4 acre would be 52x52. But that only equals 2,704 sqft. Which is only 5% (rounded) of an acre.

couple of things wrong with this. First off...its a field of Monoculture. Rye only. We all know monoculture and monodiet is wrong. He could plant so many other things, spinach, turnips, kale, potatoes, pumpkins etc, making it a more diverse and natural field, thus diet for the pigs. 2nd, rototilling is actually bringing up all the good soil that has decomposed/rich humus up to the top, and letting the sun/rain/wind erode it. If you want to kill dirt...bring it to the surface..like a desert. If you want it healthy, leave it under a canopy of greens. Conclusion....I think this is another wrong video of pasture pork farming. Plus out of that 20 000lbs food, they might only eat a part of it, and being cellulose its alot harder to digest....these are omnivores...not herbivores.

This is very misleading. You're trying to convince people they can grow 20,000 lbs of feed on a quarter acre. Any ag university will call bullcrap on this. Why not just be honest with people?

Or you simply use said pasture to grow crops for yourself, instead of needlessly breeding and slaughtering these pigs. I'm surrounded by cornfields that are solely used for livestock feed. Fields that were forests a couple decades ago

The hogs will work the manure into the ground in the existing pasture- minimum tillage is better than “rototiller” - a chain rake or chain link fence towed to break any clods/level ground. Add forage radishes, crimson clover and buckwheat to diversify the crop- its better than a mono crop

Mulberry trees also grow very quickly if heavily prune and leaves can be eaten.

The details of farming are always interesting to me. I may watch hundreds of videos and read dozens of books on the subject but will proably never farm myself. It just scratches a itch in my brain.

My sorgram Sudan grass hit 9 feet tall. It makes lots of feed.

Just pack in a bunch of biochar to get up to 9% even carbon per acre tilled in 1 time and done, then you can simply water in all the manure no-till. Better than that you can foliar with a nice vortex brew of compost tea, and then those microbes can reproduce from 12 cups of composted manure to equivalent to 10 tons worth within 24 hours, using some simple molasses and compost brewed in a tea.

His estimated production is kind of misleading. What matters is the DM not the green weight. Most of what he weighed was water(about 80%). Annual Rye produces between 1 and 3 tons per acre not including roots. Just something to consider….Great vid none the less👍

I am hungarian and I found this randomly browsing pasture maintenence videos for farm animals :D Glad to see people are doing well with this magnificent animal on the smarter side of the planet! :) Learned almost everything I practice today from videos like this :)

I planted barley and oats for my pigs but I’m excited to add some field peas and rye. I love pastured pigs

It's better to grow barley and rye together for Mangalitsa pigs.

Fantastic video. I have heard much about the uses and benefits of rye and you added one more positive take on this wonderful plant. I have never heard of the pig you mentioned so thank you for that recommendation and I will be sure and watch your pig video.

Tamworth pigs are bred from a variety known as the" Irish grazer "

About how much purchased pig feed or other grain ration do you feed your pigs? Knowing the amount of other feed/minerals you have to purchase would be very helpful to me to see if this would be cost effective for me. thanks

We run our IPP's through rye,sunflowers,kale,clover and buckwheat all spring and Summer..switch to rye and clover in the fall..works killer and pigs love it

I was thinking of growing beets, turnips , peanuts etc an setting up pen size wire fencing and just letting then root them out ?

Sounds impressive! Equates to around 2ton dry matter. Like the marketing and advertising! Keep it up.

Why even till it? Id just broadcast and run the drag over. Pigs are so good at tillage that folks used to use them to clear land and prep fields. It's been proven that no till is better for soil health anyways. I guess it would make sense if its hard packed though.

Mr Bill Gates would be horrified to see this.. Great video. 💯👍💯👍💯

Great video, I planted some rye for my pigs first time in October not grazed them on it yet so this was well timed for me (I have diakon and phacilia also in that mix), I don't get snow in winter so can strip graze until March on turnips and then move to ryegrass/clover/chicory paddocks 7 day rotation. My pigs dig so I don't need to rotovate, and I keep them with one strand of hot wire, I have a few videos too, will subscribe, thanks, Dunk

does the mud on the roots count as part of the 2 lbs?

My Grandparents didn’t buy Commercial Feed, They Would Chop, and Pull Grass, and Weeds to feed Their Pigs as well a Hand full of Hardwood Stove ashes for Worming the Pigs. Then when Their Corn Was Mature they would Feed Their Corn to finish them.

Interesting

How do you think IDAHO PASTURE PIGS would like this?

Farming: animal slaughter for a living. Grow plants... Hope lab meat takes over I used to have cattle, they are lovely creatures

Wild edibles like LambsQuarters and Palmers Amaranth are highly nutritious and are considered invasive species meaning they self propagate easily, which I love for easy of growing! Try adding that just once!

I raise pigs in Northern Az. Would this grow at a 6000ft high desert environment?

Is the meat flavour gamey or fishy compared to commercial fed feed pigs? If you have a comparison...

@YogiHollowFarm Something you might consider for your piggies.

So the end of the day use cereal rye for pasture food and supplement with grains.

So what I see you’re saying all types of pigs will eat this rye? How many pigs will that feed?

Do you soak your seeds before broadcasting them? If not, why not?

Can you answer how long it takes for the rye to ge to the recommended height before the heads start to come in and how long it takes for the pigs to eat the 1/4 acre?

This video is seven months old, but something got the algorithm to start promoting it. So many recent comments. Great video. I just subscribe to your channel.

What kind of rye seed you planted? Can you put a link and let me know where to buy it. Thanks a lot.

greetings, guys, it's very nice that you are growing Mangalica , it is very healthy because it is rich in unsaturated fats, please tell me how much surface area is required per animal for this kind of farming system, thank you

You feed your pigs dirt? Most of the weight from the rye you weighed was dirt. How do you harvest rye with the roots on?

LEVITICUS chapter says it all!

"rototill" Wouldn't chickens do as good a job or better.

Hurrah! Thank-you. I sow a grazing rye plus winter vetches cover crop in the Autumn on my allotment. The vetches fix nitrogen, so an extra benefit. We can't raise pigs there. I would!

Do you think that the iberico pig would be a forger like this one?

Specifically, what type of ryegrass is that?. The ryegrass that we use only grows about five or 6 inches and never seeds. Any information would be helpful. Thank you.

How many pigs can you keep with that quarter acre

So what else are fed to the pigs in their ration? Is this mainly their feed or are you feeding large amounts of grain too? Also what about stocking numbers and how often are they rotated?

There are about 4400 feet per acre .. so 8800 lbs per acre...

What does he mean by the pigs going feral?

Raise beef better food for humans and makes more money.

those pigs he raises are lard pigs...not meat pigs

I need you expertise i want to buy three pigs and sell two and eat one can I do that in January and sell them in October. Would it be worth it. I want to buy some weiner pigs in January. Thank you . I subscribed

Are you talking about rye grass or cereal rye?

Dammit I wish I watched more than 2 minutes of this before I planted 5 acres of rye for my standard farm pigs.

What about Maize and sorghum with full heads? What doesn't get eaten just gets planted again

Something is wrong with the audio.

But how can the rye reproduce if the pigs eat everything including the roots??

What kind of rye does he plant?

I haven’t watched the whole video but you seem to be hiding a New England accent.

I do this, but graze my goats on it

Just found the channel nice work guys. Where are you located at? Sorry if you said that didn’t catch it

where do you relocated the pigs when you used their field with manure?

How can get it that seeds am in Kenya

20,000 lbs of fresh vegetation. Do you have numbers for DM (dry matter)? That's what calculations are usually based on when determining the amount of feed offset.

Thank you this is fascinating . Always liked pigs . I am a city slicker learning from you .

Which plant can you named it

Does this breed of pig produce a lot of fat for cooking with?

right area you can do a sunflower, mix with other things.

Does that feed them for a week?!

That rye is nothing like the rye I spread this fall. Those look like the size of paintballs! Whaylt is the specific name of that seed

If you never let the soil go bare (over grazed) brought in chickens behind the pigs (parasite control) and kept em moving, you wouldn't have to worry about tilling in the manure.

Watching all these interesting farming videos, makes me want to become a farmer.

I was thinking of getting customers who want to buy pigs to prepay and later going to an auction and sell those pigs to clients. Maybe you guys can take that method. Best thing is to post ads online of pigs for sale and to test the market. Ive had farm toys since before i could walk and always dreamed of owning a farm. Maybe i can even get a contract with Farmer John or a beef company and they can pay me to raise their Product!!!! Dont tell me the sky is the limit when there is footsteps on the moon. Welcome to the University of RU-vid, i will start a youtube channel soon of a rookie going for the American Dream