Advice to make weight

Basic nutrition information, show pig, sow, and boar feeding advice
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jax7714
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Advice to make weight

Post by jax7714 » Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:18 am

First time showpig parent here.
Our Barrow has been doing well on his weight gain, or so I thought.
I was informed today that he weighed in at 115lbs yesterday and we need to be at 200lbs for county.
I now have 50 days for him to get up to weight. Our current showfeed is a 16% protein. We use Ralco Showpro Crave.
Ive bumped him up to 3lbs twice a day, a half cup of oats twice days and we sprinkle in some strawberry cake mix to get him a little more enticed in his food.
My daughter works him at least twice daily and he is an extremely muscular pig he barely has and fat on him. They have given him one B12 shot a week and a half ago, and the agg teacher gave him a shot yesterday to get him to eat more.
Is there anything else we can do to get him to gain more by the time the county show gets here?

Thanks for any advice you guys can give!

Pac
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Re: Advice to make weight

Post by Pac » Wed Jan 10, 2018 1:02 pm

I would think you should easily be able to accomplish your weight gain goals on that amount of feed. I am assuming your project animal is cleaning that up? I would keep on eye on opportunities to increase the amount of feed without losing the ability of the pig to clean it up. Your protein percentage sounds right for growth and current build, but you might look to add fat to the diet. A milk replacer powder is always an easy way to add the fat and it's just an added couple of ounces per feeding. We actually use Moorman's Alliance 3D oil and we really like it.

I would also scale back the exercise if you are most concerned about making weight. Once a day should be enough to build endurance and control. Any extra exercise will burn calories and possibly add additional muscle.

Keep in mind that the weight gains you are trying to achieve are in line with normal average gains so any additional effort you put in will only help increase your chances of gaining more.

jax7714
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Re: Advice to make weight

Post by jax7714 » Wed Jan 10, 2018 1:44 pm

He has been eating most of it lately since i added the oats the last few days. My daughter feeds it to him dry as she says he doesnt like it wet (which ive now had a few people tell me to wet it), I will also try the milk replacement see if that doesnt get him to eat a bit more (i may also sneak in and wet it one day to find out the truth)

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