[permaculture-oceania] feeding pigs and nutrient runnoff

[Robyn Francis]

Hi Kerry

Some excellent fodder crops for pigs include Jerusalem artichoke, Qld
arrowroot (leaves & roots), sweet potato, potato, pumpkin, melons. They
pretty well love all fruit and root crops ­ any chance of connecting with
fruit & veg producers in the area to collect damaged or rejected produce?
The pigs can plough areas for their own crops ­ could also design a self
harvest system for some things ­ nothing they love more than rooting up some
delicious tubers. 
They also love mulberry leaves which are high in digestible protein ­ can
coppice them regularly through spring-summer-early autumn.

what climate are you planning for.
Ciao
Robyn


On 10/6/06 11:16 PM, "kdawborn" <kdawborn at bigpond.com> wrote:

> Hi All,
> 
>  
> 
> A couple or so questions regarding livestock (pigs) on a property interested
> in using a more permaculture approach:
> 
>  
> 
> 1)       from anyone out there raising free-range pigs for meat, what kinds of
> fodder crops can be grown to reduce or eliminate the need for supplementary
> grain feeding? In our case we¹re talking commercial free-range pork
> production. We¹re aware that pigs can pretty much eat what humans can eat;
> these pigs are currently on pasture and grain, and while we realise that
> pig-tractoring in systems growing human food crops as well could have a lot of
> benefits, what we¹re looking for right now is fodder crops which would have
> sufficient protein (and other necessary nutrient?) content to ensure growth
> and meat production ­ in other words to replace the grain. We¹ve been thinking
> tree lucerne as a start, which could probably be grown in marginal areas with
> ready access to where pigs are pastured, but are wondering about other plants,
> especially those with high food for meat value that could either be grazed or
> coppiced for fodder.
> 
> 2)       Any other suggestions regarding sustainable feeding of pigs ­
> reducing or eliminating the need to bring in food from outside.
> 
> 3)       Nutrient runoff from paddocks into creek: we are concerned about the
> nutrient load going into our creek from animal manure. It seems likely that
> the most sensible way to view this is that really, the nutrients are something
> we want to keep and use rather than allow to pollute the creek, so perhaps the
> thing to do is grow more stuff that can soak it up. Any suggestions re useful
> fodder (especially) or human food plants or other plants, and ways to lay
> things out in order to best catch the runoff? As I write I¹m thinking
> swale-type arrangements with appropriate plantings could work, but we are
> talking paddocks with pigs so for stock management and other reasons, am not
> sure whether this might create problems.
> 
>  
> 
> Anyway, any thoughts and suggestions would be most welcomeŠ.
> 
>  
> 
> Cheers All,
> 
>  
> 
> Kerry Dawborn
> 
> 
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> 


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