Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
swine have eaten kitchen wastes that humans refuse to eat such as potato skins, meat
scraps, maize husks, stale bread, and the like. Large cities have significant amounts
of kitchen wastes from homes and restaurants requiring disposal. Often farmers
utilize this kitchen waste to feed swine.
A problem with using kitchen wastes, and even slaughterhouse wastes, is disease
transmission. The 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in England was traced to a
single infected salami casing used as feed on one farm. Trichinella is also transmitted
primarily from eating meat scraps infected with the eggs. As a result of these problems,
kitchen wastes are either cooked to destroy pathogenic organisms or mixed with
compost to be used as crop fertilizer. In some countries, no animal by-products are
permitted in livestock feed.
Swine are also fed many waste, or low value, products from the food-processing
industry. This includes soybean hulls, distillers mash, maize-cob meal, beet pulp, sugar-
cane juice, cottonseed meal, ripe bananas, cassava, and wheat middlings. Even cane
sugar can be mixed with grains and fed to swine. A disadvantage is that pure sugars
have only 80 percent of the gross energy value (kilojoules/gram of dry matter) of
maize.
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Reject bananas contain only about 5 percent protein, requiring other sources
of protein to balance the diet.
For swine in an intensive management system, a well-balanced diet providing
energy and proteins for growth is composed of a mixture of grains, green materials,
and supplements. The mixture of ingredients is adjusted for each growth stage of
the animals. Generally, three types of mixtures will be fed to swine: starter rations,
finishing rations, and sow rations. A starter ration will consist of maize, sprouted
oats, soybean meal, dried whey, salt, and vitamin supplements. The finishing (or
growing) ration will contain more maize, but without oats or whey. The ration for
sows will contain similar ingredients but with larger amounts of some vitamin sup-
plements. Feeding swine in tropical areas under intensive management is similar
around the world. The major differences relate to types of products used to attain the
desired ration.
Starter rations are fed to the young pigs from weaning time (12 to 28 days age) until
they are 10 to 20 weeks of age. These are similar to the young pigs shown in
Figure 7.27. The finishing ration is fed for 15 to 40 weeks until the pigs reach marketing
weight of about 110 kg. The sow ration is fed to pregnant and nursing sows. Pregnancy
lasts 115 days and nursing of the piglets lasts 12 to 28 days.
Feeding swine under less intensive management systems usually increases the time
needed to bring animals to market weight. When raised in pens, swine are fed a mixture
of home-grown or purchased grains with kitchen scraps. They may be permitted to
graze and forage for roots and nuts in a fenced field. The farmer may also purchase
waste from food-processing plants such as cassava trimmings. Cassava is useful if
dried or cooked to reduce the hydrocyanic acid content. If not treated, cassava roots
will cause reduced weight gain and possible toxicity reactions.
In Vietnam, swine are seen as a form of savings. Management of the small herds
concentrates on maintaining animal health and producing several pigs for sale each
year. The overall return on farmer investment exceeds the interest payments for
savings in commercial banks.
