Can Pastured Pigs Be Regenerative?
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- Опубликовано: 19 янв 2023
- Do pastured pigs fit into regenerative agriculture? If so, how can they help regenerate our soils and our planet?
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the thing that's crazy about agriculture is it seems we have to go forward by going backwards. The old timers had it right before the big fertilizer and chemical companies took over farming. My grandpa and great grandpa always used to put their hogs out on a newly harvested field in the fall and would leave them there until it was time to cultivate the field in spring, they would even farrow them out there. Crops were more diverse in the midwest with the old crop rotation of forage crops with grains.
Yes. There’s a lot of truth in this. They did it well. I have been working to do that with larger groups of pigs in our farm. Thanks for watching.
This is a great video. This very topic has had me perplexed for quite some time about growing pastures for pigs. You are many steps and years ahead of me in the quest for growing pig feed and I thank you for sharing what you are learning.
Thank you for watching and sharing your thoughts. I started by trying to grow small amounts of things that I thought would work in my area. Many have worked better than I thought, and a few of them have never worked out for me. Are you raising pigs?
@@DowdleFamilyFarms Yes, we are, we have 4 Mangalistas right now and I rely heavily on grain to feed them. They are in the forest, and we move them every two weeks but it doesn't seem there is too much to forage on: roots, a few small clumps of wild onions, and the occasional bug seem to be all there is. I'm going to talk to my husband about moving them to the pasture so they can tare that up enabling us to plant some of the things you have suggested. :)
This is exactly what it's all about love your videos so far awesome job
Thank you so much!
Something noted by Mark Shephard in a video I watched of his is that pigs will readily go after cow manure (as well as goat manure), and it turns out to be very beneficial to them. Not only are they consuming predigested grasses and other green forage, but they're also taking in the cows' natural gut enzymes and beneficial bacteria that then innoculate the pigs, giving them greater ability to eat and digest grasses etc.
He also noted that it's best not to have the bigs on the pasture _with_ the cows, especially if calfs are present, because they will try to get the manure straight from the source, even if it isn't available, which could put the calfs in danger.
So, if you're practicing rotational grazing, it may be a great idea to rotate pigs onto the same plot soon after the cows have been moved off. That way, they can benefit from the cow manure and some forage left over while also contibuting their own.
Mark also recommends feeding the pigs just enough feed to keep them alive, meaning they will be forced to forage to fill out the rest (and preferably on silvopasture, which is rich with fruit shrubs and fruit and nut trees).
Mark shephard has a very unique silvo system that took decades to develop. Most producers now dont have the time to do so. Though it can work. We use cover crops to feed them and it works quite well.
Very good info. Monoculture crops are hard on the environment.. Plus you’re right about carbon capture.
I think we often over look this with pastured pigs. Thanks for watching our videos.
This is a great presentation, I'm grateful the algorithm recommended it to me. I've been wondering about many of these topics for a while, you really put it all together very clearly. I've followed Sugar Mountain Farm and Mark Shepherd's systems for some time, but we're down in Georgia where it seems like the concerns are different. I'm curious if you think you could add rows of chestnuts or hazelnuts to one of your fields to eventually produce mast? There's a lady in Virginia who might have a place called something like Hogtree, where she's exploring growing different tree fruits that she'd rotate the pigs through to clean up the drops. I'm not sure what that would look like in a more southern climate. Anyway, thanks for sharing, your channel is a great find for anyone into regenerative ag!
What part of Georgia do you live in? We lived in Ocilla, about 18 miles NE of Tifton and 50 miles North of Valdosta. I am working on sprouting sheet nuts right now actually. I’m not sure if it will work or not though. Depending on your area of Georgia, it might be a bit too far south.
@trillium7582 If you decide to plant chestnuts on your property, please reach out to the American Chestnut Cooperators Foundation for seeds.
Since the 1970s, they have been selectively breeding all-American Chestnut trees with native blight-resistance, beginning with two still-living American Chestnut trees that are survivors of the original blight. They will also send you seeds for planting if you agree to partner with them in research and data collecting (innoculating your trees with the blight when they're old enough, and tracking its growth and your trees' resistance to it). They've come a long way, but still need more help. 😉
Brilliant
Thank you for watching!
Do you have a resource or book of all the lists of grow your own feeds. Good info
No I do not. Unfortunately, there's mixed information about swine feeds on pasture because the pastured pork movement is small compared to CAFO pork. With cattle, most of them spend a good portion of their early lives on pasture. Therefore, most forage research goes toward cattle. However, I am planning a series of videos that focus on each crop.
Good presentation.
Thank you! Do you raise pigs?
@@DowdleFamilyFarms When I was a grazing dairy farmer, I used to raise one or two batches of pigs a year. I feed them on colostrum and waste milk, ground corn, and waste vegetables from my Mennonite neighbors.
@@leoscheibelhut940 That’s really neat. I grab waste dairy when I can for ours. It usually works out really well in adding addition lysine and protein, especially for weaning piglets. Did you ever grow sorghum Sudan grass or pearl millet for your dairy cows? I have had two people mention that they lost dairy cows to nitrate poisoning from sorghum Sudan grass. We have never had problems with the sorghum Sudan though.
@@DowdleFamilyFarms I have grown sorghum sudan grass, pearl millet, and grazing corn as summer/ autumn feed for my Jerseys. The year I grew sorghum sudan grass and pearl millet, I was glad I planted them separately, because a droughty summer made us scared to graze the sorghum sudan grass. We were able to graze the pearl millet during the drought and then later the sudan grass a week or so after a heavy rain put a lot of new growth on the sudan grass. That fall we had an early heavy frost that the sudan grass barely survived so we were again scared to graze it until much later in fall when it was long dead. We found it kind of nerve-racking so after that we grew grazing corn and pearl millet.
Despite producing no regrowth after grazing we had the greatest summer success with grazing corn. We also had good success with grazing turnips in autumn. For early spring grazing we had fantastic success grazing cereal rye and hairy vetch planted together[which would then be planted to grazing corn]. 80% of our ground was in permanent pasture.
@@leoscheibelhut940 I’m in Mississippi, it sounds like you are in a shorter growing season for warm season stuff. Sorghum Sudan is by far my favorite crop to grow for cattle. Last year was the first year I have not grazed cattle on it due to prussic acid concerns. I did put the pigs on it after some regrowth and they loved it.
We have beef cattle so our cattle do not need the nutrition your jerseys did, though grass finishing our beef uses the sorghum Sudan. Anyway, I grew turnips for the pigs this past fall and did really well with them. I’ve never planted hairy vetch, though we have some growing in our pastures. Our planting methods tend to revolve around broadcasting seed, then lightly disking over it to let it covered. I’m not sure that hairy vetch would work well in that system. Anyway, thanks for your response. I wonder if the nitrate poisoning I have hear about was due to high nitrogen applications. I have read that it can be a problem. We generally do not use any nitrogen on the sorghum Sudan after the first year (and then only 5 lbs per acre.)
Great video! I raise a handful of pastured pork feeders and I struggle with this very thought. It just doesn't seem very regenerative to even raise pigs. Perennial systems like Sheperd's are probably the practical answer, but it take lots of time, planning, and management to get there. So, how much of your pigs feed costs are you hoping to offset in the future?? 50%?? Or more?
Glad it was helpful! In an ideal world much more than 50 percent, but it will take some time to get to that point. My biggest problem was knowing what to grow. Now my biggest problem is managing the growth, rotations, etc. I’m hoping that I can do 15-25 percent this year and eventually get to 50-75 percent of their feed. But it will take years to develop my management skills with this number of pigs.
One more thing. Perennial systems are good, annuals are a viable alternative I think, but for smaller producers especially, it may require slightly roughing up the top half inch of soil to plant those larger seeded crops.
@Dowdle Family Farms The other issue with a perennial system, is just that--making it a functional system. Planning for continuous food production for a growing animal is a monumental task. It will still require outside feed input unless it is REALLY well thought out.
@Dowdle Family Farms I'll keep following along to see how it goes. Maybe I can try to incorporate some of your ideas in my paddocks
I agree with you about the weaknesses of perennial crops for pigs. That’s why I’m going with annuals. They also jump start soil health faster than perennials.
What do you use for fertilizer? Everyone uses chicken litter around here. I hate that stuff.
We don't use added fertilizers most of the time, whether they're from a natural or synthetic source. I have found that once we get soil life moving with our warm season cover crops, the cover crop mix works on its on.
@@DowdleFamilyFarms I hope to rebuild the topsoil at my place. It's all Georgia red clay now. About as barren as it gets. The plan is to develop a keyline water system, harvest rainwater, and build food corridors with native mast trees and fruit bushes and vines and graze pigs in between swales. All the topsoil around here was lost in the 1800s during cotton farming. I wish we had topsoil like y'all do in MS. Every time I'm in Macon that soil sticks to my boots like glue!
What part of georgia? I used to live in Ocilla, near tifton. Our soils here are great either. Lots lost to cotton and other row crop farming. Cover crops make a huge difference in improving soil. It may be worth starting with warm season annual cover crops for a couple years before planting trees and others.
@@DowdleFamilyFarms I see what you mean now. I have a place near Washington, GA. It’s not the coastal plain where lots of row cropping occurs. It’s the Piedmont. It’s been pasture before and is used for row cropping now. Topsoil is gone from cotton farming. So there is nothing but red clay. It’s stained red from iron. Also, erosion is terrible. The clay just washes away easily. My fields literally run into the creek every time it rains. So, I’m building a key line water system that I’ll plant with pecan, blueberry, muscadine, red oak, persimmon, apple, etc and plant good pasture feed in the areas between the swales. So I’ll have plenty of mast, fruit, shade etc after they grow in. Pigs can eat natural and native plants, fruits and nuts. The keyline water system will assist in holding the clay in place and preventing erosion. I hope to get a CRP contract to offset the costs. I want to make a place that is good for the hogs, and reduces my feed costs to a low number.
This is a good presentation, I've had many of the same thoughts. All farms need to strive to get back to providing more feed and forage.
Pigs can be incredibly destructive, especially on open pasture. That’s why I use them to plant the next crop of annual forages. We don’t run them on perennial pastures because of that destruction, unless we are using them to turn the perennial pasture into annual pasture or something like that. Sometimes moving them quicker helps keep them from being destructive. One alternative that you might consider, depending upon how many pigs you have is placing them in a deep bedding system. I use a deep bedding system to train my pigs to electric fences and it works really really well. I could easily let that be the permanent paddock for pigs.
@@DowdleFamilyFarms do you confirm them in the winter, and if so for how long?
No we. Do not confine them in the winter. But we tend to have really mild winters.