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Pigs kept outdoors, in an environment where they can forage, will be able to gain some of their nutritional requirements naturally. Pigs will benefit from grass, brambles, acorns, apples and even earth worms in their diets. However they will always need supplementary compound feeds, to ensure that they have all the nutrients that are essential to their health.
Pigs are normally fed twice a day (if not on an adlib system) and it is important to make sure that all pigs in a herd receive their fair share. It might be necessary to provide more than one trough, to allow timid pigs access to the food, or even to separate the pigs at feeding time to ensure accurate feeding. That said, pigs enjoy foraging for their food, so you can scatter it on a clean floor as long as you are aware that bullying might result and that more waste will occur this way.
It’s tempting to feed pigs all your kitchen scraps but, although they’ll love this diet, they won’t grow and reproduce healthily on scraps alone. More importantly, it is illegal to feed household waste containing meat of any sort, in any form, to pigs. Potatoes, carrots, parsnips and the like may be fed and will increase the variety of your pigs meals, but should not be fed exclusively. When feeding raw peelings, keep an eye on your pig’s mouth – if it becomes sore you may need to roast the peelings before feeding them.
“If you are breeding pigs for meat, the diet you give them can influence the taste in a big way - my pigs are just pets but if I chose to eat them they would undoubtedly taste of apple as they work their way through at least 20 wheelbarrows of cooking apples from my tree each autumn.”
Pigs prefer their feed to be wet and this can be useful if you have surplus milk to dispose of. Wetting it with water will also be appreciated.
The amount of feed that pigs require will depend greatly on their age. For more specific details, see Breeding.
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