Posted by JD Seller on November 29, 2015 at 09:00:31 from (208.126.198.123):
In Reply to: hog feed posted by craigco on November 29, 2015 at 04:49:51:
Well you need shelled corn not ear corn. Then it is usually cheaper to mix soybean meal and a hog mineral/vitamin mix. When your pigs are smaller you want a 15-16% protein feed. As they get older you want to lower the protein to around 12-13%.
It is easy to figure rations for just protein balance if you know what the protein level is in each ingredient. Here is kind of rough averages.
#2 shelled corn 9% soybean meal 48% IF you buy the straight mineral mix it should not have any protein. Buying the mixed mineral and protein cost more per pound of protein but some mills may not keep soybean meal in 50 lbs. bags.
So for your starter mix you want a 16% protein final feed. So here is the math. 2000 x 16% = 320 lbs. per ton of protein.
Now you just work at getting the correct ratio of corn to soybean meal. A ton of corn only would have 180 lbs.of protein so you will need soybean meal to hop up the protein level.
So in just a few trial and error calculations I found that the earlier fellow as spot on in his corn level.
1650# of corn = 148.5 lbs. of protein 350 lbs. of soybean meal = 168 lbs. of protein.
So a ton would have 316.50 lbs. of protein or 15.8 % protein.
Your mineral mix would be in the 100# per ton range so you would go 1550 # corn, 350# soybean meal, and 100# lbs. of your mineral mix. That would only lower your protein by 9 lbs. to make the final feed 15.4% protein.
Then as your hogs grow you would just switch some of the soybean meal to corn. This will lower your protein level.
Now after all these calculations let me tell you how I feed hogs for a while before I had a grinder mixer an it worked well and would be simple for a smaller grower. Get yourself a divided inline eight hole hog feeder. Buy hog pellets. They usually are around a 40% protein pellet. Put them in one half of the feeder and just shelled corn in the other. The hogs will balance their feed usage as they grow. They will eat more pellets when they are smaller and slowly it will switch as they get bigger. It will be a little less efficient but only 3-5% which for you mean nothing. The convenience of not having to grind and mix feed will more than offset the efficiency difference. Caution you need pellets not meal hop supplement. The hogs will not eat the meal as well and it will not feed out most feeders. The supplement has salt in it an will attract moisture worse in the meal form.
I had hogs on five different farms when I started. So grinding and mixing feed would have been a time consuming chore. So I just put a smaller gravity wagon with shelled corn and pallet of hog pellets on each farm. Two five gallon buckets under the gravity wagon chute and your foot in the middle of the chute to split the flow of corn. A five gallon bucket holds around 30 lbs. of shelled corn. That is easy to carry/handle. The hogs will clean up shelled corn where spilled ground feed gets wasted more.
You can also use the pellets in your ground feed mix as it will make fewer fines in your final ration. I know Kent used to make the 40% hog supplement pellets. I could not find it on their web site. I found another company that showed a 40% pelted supplement. You can print off a copy and take it to your local mill and see what they can order for you that would be close in the ingredients.
I also included a picture of the feeders I used and then a picture of one that would work for you just having a few pigs. The smaller one would need divider in it to keep shelled corn on one side and your supplement pellets on the other.
One last thing. The shelled corn and pelleted feed make this a good KID project as all they have to do is keep each part of the feeder full. They can do the entire job and that makes it more "their" project.
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