Pig Farming in Kenya- Feed Management

PIG FEEDING- General

• It’s tempting to think that you can make money from pigs by feeding them kitchen scraps and garbage. Pigs will love this diet, but they won’t grow and reproduce as well as when fed correctly balanced diets.
• High performance pigs have very specific nutritional needs (for energy, protein, amino acids, vitamins and minerals).
• Consequently these commercially prepared diets are expensive and make up over 80% of the costs of producing a pig.
• Profit in commercial pig operations is driven by Feed Conversion Efficiency (FCE). This is how many kg of feed it takes to produce a kg of pig meat.
• With weaner pigs of high genetic merit housed in optimal conditions, you can now get a FCE of 2:1.
• This shows how far technology – genetics and nutrition has come in recent times. But don’t expect anything like this with pigs kept extensively.

• Exotic diseases like Foot and Mouth disease (FMD) have now made the feeding of garbage a very high-risk business.
• There are large quantities of bakery waste that are low risk, but any waste that has animal contents is risky.
• Feeding household food scraps that contain meat or have been in contact with meat is against the regulations unless the waste has been boiled for an hour, and it’s best to avoid food waste from other sources altogether if you don’t know exactly what’s in it.
• Food waste is a very variable feed and can include such hazards as broken glass, tooth picks, cutlery and excess ingredients of all sorts.

There are several types of pig industrial feed concentrates used in pig farming:

• Starter feed
• Grower Feed
• Sow and weaner feed
• Pig finisher feed.

Pigs are fed with these feeds depending on their age.  Piglets require starter meal from one week to three months to support demands for higher rate of growth at this time. They eat very little but as they grow feed should be increased at an approximate rate of 50 grams per week and by the time they are three months old, each will be requiring about one kg of feed per day.  Rate of feed increase should be sustained all the way and by four months each pig would require about 2kg of pig growers feed per day.

By four and half months a well growing pig requires about 3kg of feed per day of Pig finisher in preparation for market at between 6 and 7months on average.  Clean water should always be available for the pigs

Other supplement for the pigs

Sweet potato vines. Ferment the vines and roots for a minimum of three weeks.  Fermentation process helps to break down trypsin enzyme found in fresh vines that tend to inhibits digestibility of fresh vines when fed fresh.

Procedure of the sweet potato silage Making.

• Harvest the vines and the roots from the farm.
• Chop the vines in to small pieces about 2 to 3 inches long
• Chop the roots to small chips.
• Mix the chopped vines and roots in a ratio of 3:1.
• Wet the mixture with molasses diluted in a ratio of 1:10.
• Add some salt at 0.05%.
• Pack the mixture in air tight containers either plastic bags or plastic containers
• Compress the material completely to ensure that all air is expelled out.
• Store for a minimum of three weeks
• Open and start feeding your pigs

You should not do this to replace commercial feeds; it only enhances the pigs’ growth rate to reach the market size faster

Other products that can be used to feed the pigs includes:

• pig weed (Amaranth, Lucerne, Kales, Spinach, ripe avocado, pawpaw

Pig Feeding to Market Weight

A pig will eat 0.5kg of food per day for every month it is old, until it hits 6 months. Then it’ll eat 3kg a day forever. You’ll probably get rid of them at around 7 months? Depending on Quality feeding and management practices you may reach market weight at 6months.

Proper Nutrition for Pigs

• Pigs feed on both grains and meat. Their diet is more/less similar to that of humans; they are omnivores
• They can also be fed with cooked table scraps and vegetables.
• Corn is their most common food, but they could benefit from having a diet with protein from soybeans or cooked meat.
• They grow faster with vitamins and other supplements.
• Piglets have higher protein requirements than mature ones.
• Feeds can be bought packaged and in bulk.
• Pigs must also have adequate supply of drinking water daily, about 8 to15 litres.
• Provide water either through a tub or automatic nipple waterer.

See Feeding cost Estimates:

Cutting down on the feed bill.

1. Use quality feed
2. Use home-made mixing if raw materials are readily available
3. Slaughter at the right time at 6months. Extra month means extra cost of feeding with no additional incomes

Proper Nutrition for Pigs

• Pigs feed on both grains and meat. Their diet is more/less similar to that of humans; they are omnivores
• They can also be fed with cooked table scraps and vegetables.
• Corn is their most common food, but they could benefit from having a diet with protein from soybeans or cooked meat.
• They grow faster with vitamins and other supplements.
• Piglets have higher protein requirements than mature ones.
• Feeds can be bought packaged and in bulk.
• Pigs must also have adequate supply of drinking water daily, about 8 to15 litres.
• Provide water either through a tub or automatic nipple waterer.