Feeding Multiple Pigs

[octanemule]

This is our second year of showing swine for 4-H and we recently got our pigs for this year. Our fair is the last week of July with a target weight range of 240-300 to make show. We have a barrow born December 10 that is the biggest one. We have a gilt that was born December 11 that is quite a bit smaller than the barrow. Then we have 2 more gilts born the first week of January that are slighly smaller than the gilt born in December. We are currently hand feedon 1 lb for each pig twice per day. We seperate the big barrow because he scarfs his food down and would eat the other 3lbs if he had acccess. The 3 gilts eat but they lolly gag around and it takes them at least 30 minutes to finish 1 lb of feed. We have tried wetting it down and that maybe helps a little but they are still extremely slow. Is there any tricks to get the gilts to eat a little faster? We keep all 4 pigs together but just seperate them at feeding time and we don't have time in the morning to wait around all day for the gilts to finish.

[kgb]

2 lb per day is adequate for a 40 lb pig. If they are much larger than that they are not receiving enough nutrition.

30 minutes isn’t that bad. But if you want to speed meal time up then give them 20 minutes and the. Remove any feed left in the feeder. Keep doing this until they clean up the feed on twenty minutes.

Also try putting something like High Octane Heavy Weight on the feed. Mix Heavy Weight with enough water to make a milk shake like consistency the. Add to the feed. At 40 it should take much Heavy Weight (2 - 4 oz per day per pig).

[octanemule]

Thank you for the response. We are probably just impatient. Once the kids get out of school the end of May it won't matter but right now it's tough to wait so long when we have to get them to school.

As far as the amount, we are just following the recommendations of the breeder who is also the feed dealer. They have been doing it a long time and are well known and highly successful. The pigs weigh between 60 and 75 lbs currently and we are 130 days to fair.

[kgb]

Until they reach about 100 lb push’s will consume about 5% of their bodyweight per day. After that energy density of the diet is the determine factor.

But a 75 lb pig needs about 3.5 - 4 lb/day. The pigs should eat faster as they get bigger.

[octanemule]

KGB, You are correct. Now that they are a little older they are eating faster and things are good. Thank you for taking time to reply.