Holding weight gain - 70 days to show

Basic nutrition information, show pig, sow, and boar feeding advice
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HEREPIGGIE78
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Holding weight gain - 70 days to show

Post by HEREPIGGIE78 » Mon May 08, 2017 1:33 pm

We purchased our pigs without knowing their weights (our first little ooopps ), but we have 5 pretty nice pigs. We like purchasing on the cheaper side, so my kids get the most gain in their pocket on sale night. Show is mid/late July, heaviest right now is 180, lightest 140. We are running on the heavy side right now and they are looking nice. The heaviest barrow is super nice looking I really don't want to see him over in weight or loose his composition. We need to hold to <1.5 lbs per day - 70 days from 5/8/17. Top weight at show is 285. What is the most economical way to hold these pigs? We can't afford to sink hundreds of dollars in "specialty feeds" into these hogs. What amount of feed is needed for the hogs to gain at a slower pace, but not be crazy starving? I've read other forums and hear of oats and beet pulp, pros and cons both ways. Up to this point we have had them on self feeder, and have just moved to hand feeding this week. We just order up a standard finishing feed from the mill. We don't have regular access to scales (we are small fry ). We weigh again in 3.5 weeks so then we will be able to calculate our rate of gain and have 6 weeks to show day. Any valuable help is appreciated - thank you!!!

Pac
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Re: Holding weight gain - 70 days to show

Post by Pac » Tue May 09, 2017 10:40 am

In all honesty holding is never cheap. Powerfill from Purina is the best holding ration on the market. Moorman's makes a product called Time Out that is also good. Both are expensive, but if you are serious about keeping what you have in terms of conformation the investment is worth it. 1.5lbs ADG is not a terrible place to be. Search through some of the posts here and there is a ton of information on what you can do. The most important part is to do your holding now and push weight gain at the end. Also, keep in mind the 25 grams of Lysine a show pig needs daily to grow. KGB from Purina is a valuable resource. He is on here and has some good info to help you out.

dolfan31
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Re: Holding weight gain - 70 days to show

Post by dolfan31 » Sat May 13, 2017 11:21 pm

Moormans Show pig Navigator can also be useful in these situation.

HEREPIGGIE78
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Re: Holding weight gain - 70 days to show

Post by HEREPIGGIE78 » Mon Jun 05, 2017 9:34 am

Well, we stayed with the cheap route :) Backed the feed down to 3 lbs per day to try and keep them at 1 lb ADG, and they actually came out a little less than that. after 3 weeks We are back on track, 4 out of our 5 pigs are back on the self feeder and ready to gain. Our one hog is still a little heavy at 205 (June 3) (180 on May 5th), we are going to hold him with 6 lbs feed/day right now for 2 more weeks and then let him increase rapidly the last 30 days to make him 'pop'. I'm feeling hopeful - end up with some Purina supplements to finish out - Happy showing!

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