Feeding & Watering Pigs

Pigs, like all animals, must have constant access to clean fresh drinking water. Pigs also like to make a wallow - a muddy hole - to lie in. They may do this by tipping the water out of their water trough. They will also stand in the water trough and wash their dirty faces in it. So it needs to be checked regularly, cleaned out and refilled.

If you are clever and have the right equipment, you can mix your own food for your pigs. But we would recommend investing in a good quality commercial pig food. We use Feeding instructions are on the bag, but basically you feed 1lb of food each day for each month of age, up to a maximum of 6lbs per day. Do not feed more than this - you will waste money and end up with over-fat pigs. Furthermore, weigh the food. Six pounds is probably less than you think. On our course, there was a couple who had successfully raised two Saddleback weaners previously and were about to get their second pair. When we were shown how much six pounds of feed was, they were aghast and said that they had been feeding this amount twice per day. They also admitted that their pigs had killed out with about six inches of back fat!

Split the feeds into at least two per day. Pigs like feeding so give them as much fun as possible. We used a feed trough to start with, but latterly, we just threw the pellets over as wide an area of the pen as possible and let the pigs forage for them. Waste isn't a problem (although our land is quite well drained) and it made feeding time last so much longer.

We also feed our pigs selected scraps from the garden and occasionally the kitchen - things like lettuces which have gone to seed, left-over boiled pasta, over-ripe bananas (with the skins on) and so on. Be aware that it is illegal to feed them any meat at all.