Adjusting to hand feeding
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Adjusting to hand feeding
How long should it be before our pig adjusts to hand feeding? We started hand feeding her yesterday as we were concerned at the amount of food she is eating. Now she has been hand fed twice and is still not cleaning the pan up. This evenings feeding she was very excited to get her feed and seemed to eat eagerly for awhile and then left it. When I weighed the feed she had left on the scale she had only ate a little over a pound. She likes to eat dirt out of pen though plus she does go around at times and nibbles grass from the sides of it. We are feeding Show Rite & also began top dressing that with fat & fluffy.
Re: Adjusting to hand feeding
If you're worried about it and would like for her to clean her pan, you could try adding something into the feed like yogurt, oatmeal, canned pumpkin, etc. and mix it together. Unless you feel like she might have some other ailment, I wouldn't worry about it too much. She'll finish her food when she's ready.
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Re: Adjusting to hand feeding
Give her a few days she still thinks she can eat whenever she wants to. She will start tearing it up.
Re: Adjusting to hand feeding
Depends on how much she weighs and how much you are trying to get her to eat. Gilts are different eaters than barrows. Gilts tend to be better grazers (meaning that they like to eat multiple times a day) where barrows tend to be good hand feeders (meaning that they will eat quickly and clean up their feed fast) This is why many will keep gilts in groups and on a self feeder.
Before adding a bunch of crap to her ration, I would determine how much she really is cleaning up and compare that to her weight as well as her average daily gain. If she is less than 100 lbs, getting more than 4 lb a day will be tough for most crossbred gilts being hand fed. 100 - 200 lb gilts will eat in that 5 to 6 lbs a day as they get closer to 200 lbs. Then from 200 and up, you can start to get 6+ lbs a day in them. This is a non-slop ration I talking about. You can sometimes get higher intake by slopping. However, you will get burnout on them if you slop for a long period of time. I don't like to slop pigs for more than 21 days, and that is the last 21 days before the show.
Average Daily gain and final target weight are the two biggest things to use to determine what you need to do when it comes to feed consumption. Body type, definition, soundness and growth pattern should be used to determine what feeds to be feeding.
Hope this helps. I don't have a lot of time to get on the site anymore, but send me a private message if you want more specific advice. I get alerts for those.
Before adding a bunch of crap to her ration, I would determine how much she really is cleaning up and compare that to her weight as well as her average daily gain. If she is less than 100 lbs, getting more than 4 lb a day will be tough for most crossbred gilts being hand fed. 100 - 200 lb gilts will eat in that 5 to 6 lbs a day as they get closer to 200 lbs. Then from 200 and up, you can start to get 6+ lbs a day in them. This is a non-slop ration I talking about. You can sometimes get higher intake by slopping. However, you will get burnout on them if you slop for a long period of time. I don't like to slop pigs for more than 21 days, and that is the last 21 days before the show.
Average Daily gain and final target weight are the two biggest things to use to determine what you need to do when it comes to feed consumption. Body type, definition, soundness and growth pattern should be used to determine what feeds to be feeding.
Hope this helps. I don't have a lot of time to get on the site anymore, but send me a private message if you want more specific advice. I get alerts for those.
Colby Ferguson
Mary-Okie Farm
cferg615@outlook.com
“Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant
Mary-Okie Farm
cferg615@outlook.com
“Show class, have pride, and display character. If you do, winning takes care of itself.” Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant