Alright hog men, I'm looking to mess with fattening out some hogs for the freezer. It's been a long time since I had some pigs around here so
I'm looking for some information. I have ear corn, access to oats, and I have a gehl 2 ton grinder mixer and I plan on buying bean meal and
mineral as supplement. The questions I have are as follows:
What is a good feed recipe for a 2 ton mix given that I have ear corn, oats, and bean meal?

I'm doing this as a winter project on the side mostly for friends and family and to put something in the barn for winter, not looking to raise hogs
commercially, so I was thinking around 10-12 pigs. How many ton of feed would it take to finish a dozen feeders from say 40-50 lb to fat hogs?

Thanks in advance.
 
I don't know how long it'll take them to fatten up on earcorn and soybean meal. I've always used shell corn and soybean meal and no oats. Starting out of 50 lb ti 250 will take approximately 4 months. Start them about 16 to 17% protein when they're Small down to a 12% protein when they're fat. I raise hogs for 25 years but quit 10 years ago so just off the top of my head.
 
I always added oats with shelled corn, but you can drop the oats if you use ear corn. I just added a little more soy meal to bump up the protein when using ear corn. Hogs don't clean up the feed as well on ear corn, but still finish just fine. Al
 
Thanks Chuck. We always ran the ear corn through a 3pt sheller because my dad thought the cob was a waste to feed to hogs however I have to acces to a sheller nor do I have the desire to shell my ear corn.
 
The only real difference is they will grow a little slower on ear corn and oats as they have less energy. Hogs need a lot of energy. But you will likely get nicer hogs and meat. Since it's not for profit there is little downside. The protien percentages listed above are what I used to use too, but that was closer to 30 years ago. You will also need salt. I had a 100 bu grinder and added 25 lbs of salt and 50 of mineral along with the soymeal and corn. Some vitamins won't hurt either for healthier pigs. Mix a small batch of the high protien stuff because they won't eat much at that size.
 
One ton should be enough to feed out 3 hogs. But the ground ear corn will be lower in TDN and digestible energy, so it may take more pounds of feed and they will probably grow a bit slower due to the high fiber in the cob. I really like ground ear corn for cattle, but have never tried it for hogs.
 
I use shelled corn and a 36% sow and pig mix from Purina. I only raise two at a time so my mixes are small, but I do 15 gallons of corn to 25 pounds of the pig mix. Makes about 800 pounds if I remember right. The pig mix is a little cheaper then soybean meal and it has mix directions on the tag. Also the pig mix has some minerals that pigs need to do well. The two on it now we're in bad shape when I got them now looking good. Just my experience.
 
Before my math gets beat up I bought 4 bags of pig mix and mixed at one time to get my 800 pounds. Left that out of my first post. It was $84 for the four bags of pig mix.
 
My experiance was with ear corn they will root out all the cobs they can and in the prossess they will root out the what they should consider the good part of the feed. The oats is the grower part of the feed and the corn the fattening part. We always if we could put in a bunch of hay into the ground feed. They used to sell what was called alfalfa meal for that and bought a lot of it. We got our own hammer mill and all the chaf on the wagon after unloading the hay went into the hammer mill and then into the hog feed. It was the better part of the hay that previous was thrown back on the field, And the boughten alfalfa meal could have been the worst junk hay that could be found as long as it tested good for the things they tested it for and if it tested low they would just mix it in good hay to get the test up. Did same with chicken feed. But have had no livestalk for over 30 years now. The corn should go thru a half inch mill screen but you will have trouble getting the cobs thru that screen, they need a 3/4" screen. And then they are chunks easly tried to push out of the feed with good feed with them.
 
I have a BS degree in Animal Science, from U of MN, 1971...that being said...yes, you could feed hogs that way, but the inclusion of ear corn, instead of shelled corn, will give you a fatter hog, longer time to market weight. Likely a larger frame. Longer time to maturity. Inclusion of minerals and protein from soybean meal is a positive. You need those amino acids that soy provides. Inclusion of the cob means more fiber, slower weight gain. You need to weigh the differences and decide which way you want to follow.
 
You just dont grind ear corn for hogs it needs to be shelled if you are going to eat them feed them the best ration and it sure isnt ground ear corn.
 
Drop the oats or any other high fiber ingredients, like hay, in any finisher ration. Your oats are high in fiber too. Since your going to be using ear corn your going to have too much fiber anyway. I would use the smallest screen you can get the cobs to go through, 1/2 inch maybe. Run the hammer mill at high speed too. The hogs will root the cobs out and waste more feed doing that. So try to get that cob as small as possible or they will root harder.

I have used ear corn in hog rations to just use up some or to bridge being out of shelled corn. It always resulted in a much slower growth and more mess around the feeders.

If you have a slab of concrete or other hard feeding area, I would be tempted to really go old school. Forget grinding the ear corn. Throw whole ears out on the slab. Feed a pelletized supplement. The hogs will shell the corn and will not waste much at all if the feeding area is not muddy or manure covered. You can use the cobs as bedding.

When my Maternal Grand Father retired he raised some hogs. He liked HUGE hams, so he wanted 300 lbs. hogs. He would feed out 4-6 hogs a year, just for meat for himself/family. He had a two hole hog feeder he would put a pelleted supplement in. Then ear corn on a slab. The hogs will self regulate the ration. When they are small they will eat more supplement as they get larger they will eat more corn.

They will grow however you feed them. The different will be time to finished and the amount of feed it will take. Feeding them this way will mean they will be around 7-8 months old when finished over the six months they would be with a higher energy diet.

As for amounts/ingredients when grinding feed. Your going to want around a 14% starter ration and a 10-12% finish ration. Your ear corn will only be around 7% protein. Soybean meal is around 42-44% protein.

So to start I would grind #1500 of ear corn, #450 soybean meal, with a hog mineral supplement. This would be right around a 14% feed. IF you want to drop some of the ear corn and add in some oats this will work in the starter ration but not in the finish ration very well. So you could go up to #500 of oats and just drop that amount of corn. The protein will be close enough to not worry. The oats may help the younger piglets get started. Just do not go over board as hogs are not made to process high fiber diets very well.

A good finish ration would be #1750 of ear corn, #200 soybean meal, and a hog mineral supplement. Zero oats or hay.
 
I feed 16% the whole way, I get em about 60 pounds and they head to the butcher at about 300 pounds when 6 months old. I go to the mill and get nine bags of premix and grind with 1550 of shelled corn. Last time I only used 5 bag and less corn to make a little over half a ton. One to. Will feed out three pigs is my rule of thumb. I?ve done 2-3 groups a year for the last 6 years Andy keep records, these are the averages I came up with. I would probably Shell that corn if you have the means.
 
Call your local Agricultural Extension office, I'm sure your states Land Grant university will have bulletins available for calculating hog rations. You can feed them almost anything if not going for maximum gain in shortest time, at least cost. We even fed out a batch on wheat once because we had a bin full of sprouted/weedy (no vomitoxin) just had to add a special additive from Master Mix that had the missing amino acids.
 
Ten to twelve finished hogs will produce a lot of meat, they normally dress out to around 60 percent of the live weight. If you finish them to 250 pounds you can expect around 140 pound of meat per hog, 10 to 12 would produce 1400 to 1680 pounds of meat at one time. Will you be selling some of the finished hogs or sell the excess meat? Families often order a half hog (70 pounds of meat) or a quarter of beef (150 pounds of meat) at a time.

Commercial producers shoot for a feed conversion of 3 pounds of feed for a pound of gain and sell finished hogs at about 6 months of age. Ear corn will add about one bushel of cob for every bushel of shelled corn. That much roughage could restrict the rate of weight gain and really hurt the feed efficiency.

Would you be better off to feed your high roughage ear corn, hay and oats to a single feeder steer or a feeder heifer?
 
I have had good luck just feeding ear corn and letting the hogs shell it and then feed the bean meal with mineral on the side at what normal percentages are for growing and then finishing. I feed just one litter at a time for family and friends. My boys love bacon, ham, and pork burgers. They grow good on that!
 
Unless you do the butchering & processing yourself best check into that ahead of buying pigs. Around here it is VERY hard to find a butcher and then get an appointment to get them done when you need it done ! And now the closest butcher doesn't process them for some reason and you have to take the butchered hog to another place for processing. Usually ends up cheaper to just go buy what meat you need when you want it.
 
I have steers on feed too. All sold before theyre weaned and put in the lot. I have a market for the beef and I have others inquiring about pork so I have no doubt I can sell the hogs. Again, just looking to do a few for the sake of doing them and if I lose my a$$ on them, well that's farming. :)
 
WE tried raising our own hogs to butcher and found in the long run it is a lot cheaper just to go to the stock sale and buy one to butcher. I call our slaughter house ahead of time and only have to keep them for a day or two at most. Hogs aren't quite the same as cattle in that they have for the most part been on feed where cattle may or may not be grain fattened or grass fattened. I haven't gotten a bad tasting hog that way yet. Just my thoughts and situation. Keith
 

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