got some sugar beet and mangel forage beet seeds im going to grow for my animals. bet that would fatten up pigs quickly and they grow great in less than ideal conditions also.
2 Likes
Have you grown sugar beets and mangels before?
I have once.
2 Likes
Find out if there is anybody pressing cider anywhere near you. It generates buckets of apple mush that pigs, chickens, goats, cows, and just about any other farm animal love to eat.
2 Likes
no but i read up on them.
Major PITA growing either of one them IME. They need constant weed control as the seedlings have little vigor. They also require lots of K and N if you want big roots. Loose soil without rocks also required for big roots.
Western MN along the Red River is sugar beet country. Beautiful silt and clay loams several feet deep with high nutrient levels. They grow RR beets though, so weed control isn’t an issue.
Good luck with them, and I hope you do better with them than I have.
1 Like
the spot im planting them in is nice loam with little rocks. was a milk farm 40 years ago and its pretty fertile. i plan to grow them in between wood chip mulch to control weeds and help hold water. something to try.
1 Like
4 Likes
I’ve had some of Eliza’s meat products, and they are very good!
I’ve been growing a number of ‘everbearing’ type hybrid mulberries for nearly 30 years. While they are heavy producers - we eat them fresh off the tree, and the birds take a lot, and a lot fall to the ground - I have serious doubts about claims that one 20-yr old tree can provide all the feed 6 market hogs need for 2 months… I have serious doubts that you could sustain ONE hog exclusively on the fallen fruit from one tree. I’m sure they enjoy the ‘dessert’, but let’s say I’m very sceptical about reasonable weight gains if they’re not being provided anything else.
I have Hicks Everbearing… just coming into production… but unless it’s several orders of magnitude more productive than Illinois Everbearing or Silk Hope… I think those claims are incredibly inflated. I’m also given to understand that HE fruits are not particularly flavorful… but hogs and chickens aren’t noted for their discerning palates.
However, I’m willing to have my mind changed if someone has some substantial documentation of production records.
But it does remind me of this old tale that I remember my Dad telling…
*A salesman is driving down a country road and breaks down a little ways from a farmhouse, so he walks up the driveway to see if he can use the phone. In the front yard, he finds the farmer, who is picking up a pig and holding it up so the pig can bite an apple off the tree.
The farmer puts the pig down while the pig eats the apple, and then picks the pig up again so the pig can get another apple. This goes on for about five minutes while the salesman watches – pick the pig up, get the apple, put the pig down – about half a dozen times.
Finally the salesman can’t stand it, and says to the farmer, “Wouldn’t it save a lot of time if you just shook the tree and let the pig eat the apples off the ground?!?”
The farmer looks at the salesman and says, “What’s time to a pig?”
2 Likes
If i were planting trees to accommodate raising pigs, i would plant both soft and hard mast trees. A few apples and pears, a few chinese chestnuts, and some swamp oaks. Chestnuts and swamp oaks both start producing nuts at a relatively young age, and can provide a decent amount of forage.
No matter what you plant, make sure you fence them off so the pigs dont root them out or girdle the trees.
1 Like
I want to thank everyone who has contributed to this thread. This is a direction that I’ve considered going in with the back half of my property, by growing chestnut trees and interplanting D.V. persimmons.
1 Like
Do it as a forage crop. Till and plant it, then fence it and set them out on it come fall. Probably a little harder than I’m making it sound, but not much. And It should be viable for many years from a single planting. I’ve only ever seen them decline from lack of harvest. If you try to dig them all, they thrive the next year. If you lead them be, they aren’t nearly as aggressive as their reputation would have you believe.
3 Likes
Pigs must have very tough teeth to be able to crack butternuts. We had difficulty doing that even with a vise! I wonder how tasty the feral hogs are that are spreading across the country?
The wild hogs I’ve ate from Oklahoma tasted great. We got them in the spring before it got really hot, which is supposed to make a difference. It also probably made a difference that the land owner had corn feeders for deer all over the place. I’m pretty sure they were eating about as much grain as domesticated hogs, lol.
2 Likes