Posted: Sun Mar 27, 05 1:12 am Post subject: Raising piglets
Any advice on raising piglets would be greatly received. We have wonderful neighbours here who are willing to bend over backwards to help but the trouble is - they are all french! Lovely as they are I have a hard time understanding their advice so if any out there keeps pigs please get in touch as we are expecting a couple of weeners in the next few weeks.
We have been told by the local to feed them on barley meal and "suppliment" until they are ready for fattening with vegetable scraps etc. I also read somewhere in one of Mr Seymour's books that they need alot of milk. We don't have a cow but are contemplating goats. Are these easy enough to milk and would they provide enough for both us and the pigs??? (depends on how many goats I suppose)
We are two 3 month old pigs (or so I hope) .... all advice from current pig-keepers will be greatly received.
I appologise for the typos in the previous post .... hope it was decipherable. Windows just updated my clock as a result of "daylight saving time" - don't the Americans come up with some exceptional phrases!!
Simon, there's an article in this month's CS about a man in France getting in to pig breeding. It's a fairly comprehensive article with one or two interesting facts about French rules on transport, slaughter etc. Are you able to get hold of it there? Even though you're in France I think it would be a useful publication for you (there are often articles on French readers).
I have visited the "Country Smallholding" site in the past but unable to subscribe as my card is registered here in france and was rejected. No worries, now that I know it has articles on "France" I will get a member of my family in the UK to subscribe for me. In the mean time if anybody could matbe scan and email to me the article on Pigs it would be most appreciated.
At 12 weeks old there will be no need for milk in their diet.
Supplement may mean just a mineral and vitamin mix or it may be a
protein source with mins and vits.
Thanks Joey.
I have a neighbour going with me to buy the suppliment tomorrow to keep me right. The piglets are due on Saturday. I have also been in touch with an English chap not far from us who has "been there and done that". He moved to France to keep pigs here.
Well I received my copy of CS (May) yesterday. Thanks Bugs for the hint. The pig article is interesting. Speaking of which - the pig arrived yesterday aswell .... good timing eh?
Treacodactyl Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 25795 Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
Posted: Sun Apr 03, 05 7:16 am Post subject:
Keep us up to date with the progress of your small jambons.
You're very welcome Simon. I really like CS for the same reason I like TKG; almost all of the articles, while not necessarily of the highest journalistic standards, are written by people who are practising what they preach, and I hope by subscribing I'm storing up useful knowledge for sometime in the future. I'd even recommend it to people who don't want to do any of that kind of thing, because it opens your eyes to many things, not least the gap between the produce we buy, and how things could be.
I really ought to be on commission for those two magazines!
By this, I really mean the cosmetics of organisation, grammar, spelling etc. Not that they are very bad at all, but I think it comes across that both magazines have their eyes on the facts and not the packaging (a good thing in my mind).
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