Hogs on milk?

[Double R Ranch]

I am picking up a few piglets to help keep up with our milk cow and the whey etc from cheese making. Turning dairy into bacon is the plan. We had hogs years ago but it's been a while since we've raised any. We have tons of milk and whey that we want to feed them along with their feed. Any suggestions on doing this? I am thinking soaking their feed before feeding but not sure if this is the correct method. How much is too much? Planning to get them from their near 100#'s to 250 ish then get them in the freezer. Debating on how many to get. Want a years worth of meat put away and we make a fair amount of pork products.
Suggestions?
Thanks!

 

[Rmc]

Best way we have found to fatten them up is to put the milk in a drum with oats .
gain is amazing if you wait until the grain starts to sprout before feeding,if you can.

 

[Little Joe]

I fed out 2 last year with out of date milk from a neighbor who has milk routes, I poured it over their feed in the bucket then fed to them. 2 pigs got around 4-6 gallons of milk a day. They weighed around 225 at 6 months old.

 

[Jeanne - Simme Valley]

With modern pigs, I would think a goal of 300# would be better?? I don't raise any, but I'm little involved with 4-H market program and I love to buy one and EAT PORK!!

 

[Travlr]

I am picking up a few piglets to help keep up with our milk cow and the whey etc from cheese making. Turning dairy into bacon is the plan. We had hogs years ago but it's been a while since we've raised any. We have tons of milk and whey that we want to feed them along with their feed. Any suggestions on doing this? I am thinking soaking their feed before feeding but not sure if this is the correct method. How much is too much? Planning to get them from their near 100#'s to 250 ish then get them in the freezer. Debating on how many to get. Want a years worth of meat put away and we make a fair amount of pork products.
Suggestions?
Thanks!

I think you are smart for asking about growing pork on milk...

We bought half a processed hog a couple of years ago as one of my SIL called and was excited about having one offered to her. She was especially interested as the people offering it told her how excellent the meat would be because the pig was raised on milk.

But what was in the package was a lot of very fatty meat with little flavor. The fat was so thick that we trimmed close to half of what was packaged before we cooked it. It's my only experience with milk fed pork, so maybe not the average experience, but I will never buy pork that is milk fed again.

And I'm sure milk can be fed at appropriate amounts, and this one was probably overfed milk and not fed what it needed to be a good quality product. I have no idea where that limit is defined.

 

[cowman82]

i always heard they don't taste very good being fed a lot of milk. Never had one like that though.

 

[Hogfarmer10]

Perfectly fine to feed hogs milk. Start slow and build up the amount of milk. A lot depends on what kind of grain you're using. Definitely would stop the milk at least 90 days before slaughter. Unless the breed you've selected is a smaller breed, why do you want to kill at such a small weight? I never kill one less than 425. But I raise large frame hogs. You won't get that from ipp, kune kune or even Hereford. Usually they're still growing rapidly at 200 lbs and the meat will be leaner. After about 260, they'll slow down in growth but start putting fat on.

 

[puzzled in oregon]

We would save the milk from our milk cows for the first few days after they would freshen. Put it into barrels and
would feed it later to a pig(s), sometimes they would get fresh milk from the family cow, but there was always grain
mixed with it. I think we added barley, by the time they were getting close to the weight we wanted them they would
have been off the whey and milk for awhile and would just been on grain, with corn towards the end.

 

[Warren Allison]

People always put their extra milk,....or milk that couldn't be used to drink like from one being treated for mastitis, etc..... in the slop bucket with all the food scraps. This was then mixed with corn, and used to "slop the hogs".

 

[TexasJerseyMilker]

I got a bottle heifer that was disinterested in calf starter to go for it with enthusiasm by pouring her milk on it like a bowl of cereal.

 

[farmerjan]

Hey mr hog expert @skyhightree1 .... care to chime in?????

 

[Double R Ranch]

I think you are smart for asking about growing pork on milk...

We bought half a processed hog a couple of years ago as one of my SIL called and was excited about having one offered to her. She was especially interested as the people offering it told her how excellent the meat would be because the pig was raised on milk.

But what was in the package was a lot of very fatty meat with little flavor. The fat was so thick that we trimmed close to half of what was packaged before we cooked it. It's my only experience with milk fed pork, so maybe not the average experience, but I will never buy pork that is milk fed again.

And I'm sure milk can be fed at appropriate amounts, and this one was probably overfed milk and not fed what it needed to be a good quality product. I have no idea where that limit is defined.

Very interesting. We've never had any pork that was fed milk so this is new. Just see a lot of folks with home dairy cows do it. We were already planning on raising pork but figured this would help with the feed bill. These will not be on milk only for sure. Thank you.

Perfectly fine to feed hogs milk. Start slow and build up the amount of milk. A lot depends on what kind of grain you're using. Definitely would stop the milk at least 90 days before slaughter. Unless the breed you've selected is a smaller breed, why do you want to kill at such a small weight? I never kill one less than 425. But I raise large frame hogs. You won't get that from ipp, kune kune or even Hereford. Usually they're still growing rapidly at 200 lbs and the meat will be leaner. After about 260, they'll slow down in growth but start putting fat on.

Excellent. Will definitely stop feeding the milk before butcher as suggested. That will probably be easy. By then our cow should be at peak and the calves and our needs should be keeping up. 425 would be even better for us. We can get less hogs. I think we used to raise them to 250#'s and butcher but honestly can't remember. It's been well over a decade now. We definitely want the fat added. Especially because we render a lot of it for use. Thank you.

We would save the milk from our milk cows for the first few days after they would freshen. Put it into barrels and
would feed it later to a pig(s), sometimes they would get fresh milk from the family cow, but there was always grain
mixed with it. I think we added barley, by the time they were getting close to the weight we wanted them they would
have been off the whey and milk for awhile and would just been on grain, with corn towards the end.

Sounds like pulling them off milk/whey is definitely a good plan. Will look into the barley as well. Looking at what feed we'll be getting this week. When we had hogs many years ago we'd get custom feed so need to see what's out there now. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Double R Ranch]

Thanks so much everyone! Piglets should be here next week so trying to prepare.

 

[cowman82]

Perfectly fine to feed hogs milk. Start slow and build up the amount of milk. A lot depends on what kind of grain you're using. Definitely would stop the milk at least 90 days before slaughter. Unless the breed you've selected is a smaller breed, why do you want to kill at such a small weight? I never kill one less than 425. But I raise large frame hogs. You won't get that from ipp, kune kune or even Hereford. Usually they're still growing rapidly at 200 lbs and the meat will be leaner. After about 260, they'll slow down in growth but start putting fat on.

you said it yourself.. after 260 they just start putting on fat. 240 - 280 seems to be a real sweet spot. We take ours in at those weights and they are perfect. When we moved here we need a butcher hog and called up a local guy. He sold us one of those big old fat ones. (I never looked at it just made the call) We pick it up and it ended up being almost 800 bucks total and the entire thing was solid fat. Most of it we had to throw away.

 

[mwj]

Those over-fat hogs are not modern genetics. Commercial hogs today tend to be very lean.

Berks are used by a lot of people to put fat into there pork.

 

[farmerjan]

We would raise our hogs up to about 350 or so. Fed milk when I had it... mixed in whatever feed they were getting... Milk tends to make the fats "softer" so stopping some or all of it for a month or 2 before actual butcher tends to "harden the fat" so to speak. I don't think I ever totally quit feeding milk to them... had sows and raised feeder pigs for years... so the piglets got a good amount of the milk before they were weaned and sold... I would sell at 8-12 weeks normally... but always killed a few sows or non-breeders..... several were in the 5-600 lb size as they became too big or did not raise as many pigs and such. Never saw any big difference in the meat. I had Hampshire/Duroc crosses... some red wattle mixed in and some Berkshire mixed in also. Always had good pork. The ham steaks were huge on some of them when I had them sliced...

 

[mwj]

Those sows made some very good sausage!!!

 

[clovlanfarms]

We would save the milk from our milk cows for the first few days after they would freshen. Put it into barrels and
would feed it later to a pig(s), sometimes they would get fresh milk from the family cow, but there was always grain
mixed with it. I think we added barley, by the time they were getting close to the weight we wanted them they would
have been off the whey and milk for awhile and would just been on grain, with corn towards the end.

thats called hog slop