Animal Garden = Animal Feed

(originally posted Sept 13, 2009)


Here's how we cut feed store costs and raise healthier pigs:


I'd be remiss if I didn't put up a post explaining how we are feeding our oinkers....I know I've alluded to it, but here's the bottom line.

Remember this? It's our Animal Garden...about 3000 sq feet of veggies grown mostly for our pigs and chickens. (I say mostly because I'm not above going down there and forking up a nice bunch of carrots or beets to sell, if I'm running out of those in the Main Garden.)

I plant my seeds and seedlings very close together down there in the Animal Garden. This helps keep down the weeds. Plus, as the plants grow, we can thin them out and feed the thinnings to the animals.

Sure, in the beginning, the thinnings don't add up to much. But we do it anyway, as it allows the remaining veggies to grow bigger. When we pick feed, we just pull the largest veggies, leaving room for the neighbour to get bigger.

We have a woodstove down at the barn. Every day now for the last month or so, we have been lighting the stove with canners on top full of veggies.

The Gman built a table inside the Animal Garden awhile ago. It has been a huge time saver! Instead of hauling veggies into the barn to chop up on the freezers (we were using the freezer tops as our table) now we can toss all the veggies on this table and chop right there.

Just some of the veggies picked for a meal: from left to right....a really mangy looking beet I wasn't willing to sell....a sugar beet...some rutabagas, turnips and over on the far right are some mangels.

Here's the wheelbarrow which we try to fill once a day...this will fill two canners to the top and then some.

We chop the leaves off, since the hens Lurv them and the pigs do not....I can almost hear them screaming that greens are Filler...we don't want Filler...we want Roots!!

they all get fed off to the hens.

The stalks however, get tossed in the wheelbarrow since the pigs like them...fussy things.

All morning we keep the stove going. By lunch time, the veggies are well cooked and we go down and pull the two canners off the stove.

 

One will get fed to the pigs in late afternoon along with their grain. The other will be fed the following morning with their breakfast grain.

 

And the Pigs Lurv these veggies....unreal how quickly they gobble it all up!

 

We're now in the finishing stages of growing these pigs out, so they get these canners full of veggies, plus any trimmings or weeds we happen to pull out of the gardens.

Next week, we will likely up them to two canners full for each meal. Gotta fatten these porkers up!

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