As far as a complete feed what's going to be best? Money is no problem I have access to purina, moorman's, and sunglo products possibly others too. Which am I going to have best success with for 75 to show? Also who has the best starter program?

I know I'm being a little bias but i hate Sunglo feeds. I have never got pigs to grow well with Sunglo. We use Moorman's Showtec as our base feed (18% mostly mixing the high and low fat when needed). We use other Moorman's products like the Moorbody, Lean Maximizer, as well as the Navigator. We will use Purina supplements like the Powerfill to hold and the Champion Drive to add vitamins/minerals to there diet to help them stay fresh.

Just a thought if you are feeding High Octane Champion Drive for just the minerals and vitamins you are missing out on the Amaferm, octacosanol, TASCO and especially what it does for muscle in the pig's top.

Kgb, we use the navigator to help the top line and i believe the Moorman's Showtec already has the vitamins that you mentioned, but I'm not a hundred percent sure.

We prefer Purina, we can get just about any feed through the various local feed stores in our area. Our main reason was consistent availability of the feed (local store stocks Purina) as well as the excellent support from both Purina corporate and through the nutritionist (KGB) on this forum. We have had consistent results. This year we did have one issue with some bad (moldy feed). However this problem was quickly resolved and we were well compensated for the problem. Also the feed is formulated to work with the supplements, so you get the results you are looking for.

I've used Moormans, Lindners, and Purina. The first two with decent success. But in the past few years I have placed multiple grands as well as a very high placing at the Houston Livestock show. All my winners came from Purina where as the others were decently placing animals over the past 10 years,
Not saying Purina is better, I believe it comes from you comfortability and understanding of these products, when and why to use them. I understand the purina base feeds as well as there sumplements and topdressing very well. I think KGB is the deciding factor for truly understanding purina. He explains what they do as well as how and why. You don't get that support from the others you just have to go off there ingredients list and description.

We feed Sunglo. Fed 14 hogs this season and loved it. Switched from mixing our own feed to see how they did from 75 to show and was very pleased with the results.

Price is the main factor for why we went with Sunglo over Purina and Showtec. We have easy sources to all three and Sunglo was between $4 and $5 a bag cheaper. Can't see spending $160 to $200 a ton more for base feeds that we've not found to be any better.

It's time for the other feed companies to reformulate the feeds and come back down on price since Corn and SBM are half of what they were 2 years ago. There is no reason why an 18% swine feed should be costing $800 a ton! If it is that good, then there should be no reason for all the buckets of supplements.

The cost to feed hogs is out of control, but to be competitive, you have to manipulate them with the feed bucket.

I'm not sure who's more out of control the feed companies or the boar studs. Both are making the showpig industry almost impossible to be profitable.

We've cut sow numbers to almost zero as there is just no money in selling showpigs. We averaged a little over $400 on the pigs we sold last spring and that pretty much covered the cost of production.

Sorry for the rant and hijacking of the post!

I am also curious to why feed prices never come down when corn and sbm prices fall? Diesel is also cheaper so you would think freight prices wouldn't be any higher. I figure it is probably someone saying they have been paying these high prices so why lower it, its just more profit for the feed companies. I know everyone has to make living but some of these feed and supplements prices are crazy.

Actually feed prices have gone up and down some over the last 12 months. If you are looking for a culprit I have 2 for you:

1. Ethanol plants and the government mandate to use so much of the corn crop every year for ethanol production.

And

2. Speculators (investors etc) that artificially drive the price of corn and beans.

kgb wrote:Actually feed prices have gone up and down some over the last 12 months. If you are looking for a culprit I have 2 for you:

1. Ethanol plants and the government mandate to use so much of the corn crop every year for ethanol production.

And

2. Speculators (investors etc) that artificially drive the price of corn and beans.

These are two reasons for the changes in corn and SBM prices. However, the branded swine feeds seem to be very stable, especially the pelleted feeds. The corn based meal feeds are the only feeds that we've seen drop in the last 12 months.

Also, this doesn't address the initial and overriding issue of why bagged branded showpig feeds are $800/ton!

If it is that good and so heavily fortified we everything known to man, then why need Champion Drive, Sumo, Heavy Weight, Navigator, etc, etc, etc?

Just no excuse for $800/ton feed when corn is $3.75/bushel and SBM is barely $350/ton.

Name brand feeds are more like $1,000 a ton in my part of the country.

We fed the Sunglo G18 feed this season and it stayed around $15.25 to 15.50 a bag all year. My dad liked how well we did with it so much that he decided to get it for his operation there in Southern Oklahoma. He is paying $20.50 a bag for the same feed.

We priced the 18% from Showtec and from Purina and they both ran around $19 to $20/bag. Both are pelleted. Just can't justify paying $160 to $200 a ton more for feed that is basically the same.

We tried Honors didn't like it couldn't get pigs to grow. I have fed linders and now we feed moorman's which we really like. My suggestion is pick one of them and learn how to feed it like how to mix and know the different names each protein has. If you do the research and gain the knowledge all 3 of these feeds is good.

Ive been doing some looking and pricing... Yep prices haven't gone down any yet.

Well, of the 3 options you listed, Showtec and Sunglo are the two complete feeds we feed most often. We’ve also started using Linder. Sunglo is the least expensive here, so G18 is probably our most used each year. However, I did feed a lot of Showtec 18007 and 18241 this past season. The 18241 feed is lower fat and I needed to pull the fat out of the diet on a couple of barrows. Sunglo doesn’t have a low fat feed. We used Lindner’s for the first time last year as well. I really like the 611 Scud feed there in the last 3 to 4 weeks before the show. So as you can see, I don’t have much loyalty to any one brand. As far as a starter program, we start litters on 1/2 bag of Sunglo pre-starter. Then switch to the Sunglo Starter. Usually feed 3 bags of that per litter and then switch to Sunglo 803 (medicated with Mecadox). I’ll feed that til roughly 60 -75 lbs. The little pigs we buy all go on 803 to get them started. Just don’t have much issue with sickness when on the 803.

I’ll stop there. I’m sure I have generated some other questions. One last thing. We feed based on how each pig needs to be fed. If one brand has what I need, I get it. It’s all about the feeding now days (and a really good showman!)