Agroforesty/Includes pig production ideas

[near horse]

Hey Carl,

Is that 3rd picture the “famed” Earthwise Pig-in a Poke Roundup?

Seriously, I have a couple of questions. Did you breed that sow and farrow those piglets? What breed/cross are they? I always associate red with Durocs but know there’s a lot of interest in heritage breeds like Red Wattles (although I don’t see any wattles here). How did you all decide on what type of hogs to raise? They sure look good and healthy to me! Nice.

Along the agroforestry thread – the multiple use idea is discussed quite a bit in much of the permaculture literature, although they usually focus on more tropical environments.

[Andy Carson]

A couple more comments as I learn more about this, make phones calls, and do research…

One of the limiting factors in having hogs harvest tree crops is that many crops drop at one short time in the year. Hogs can pick these crops up for sure, but one must have enough hogs “on hand” to do this. Having enough hogs on hand means that one must feed them something else for the remaining part of the year. This would often lead back to traditional field crops or a pasturing system, at least in part. This is something missed by simply calculating the calories and protein avaliable and dividing by the number of pigs… This is probably why J Russell Smith (and traditional southern hog raisers) focused on the mulberry. The tree is not a bad when it comes to yield per acre, but many nuts are far superior from the point of view of calories/protein per acre. The total calories per acre seem to be less important that having an extended harvest season. Much of these tree-crops are very high value to wildlife, and having them sit on the ground without getting eaten by critters is asking alot.

Another interesting this that I have learned is that many of the operations that focus on raising hogs in the woods are finish only operations. There seem to be a variety of reasons behind why they don’t farrow thier own pigs, something about profit margins and time spent with animal care versus time spent marketing… At any rate, at least one producer has difficulty finding enough pigs to raise every year. This problem is compounded by the observation that pigs born outdoors do much better in the woods than pigs born in confinement. Interestly, at least this producer told me that the breed of pig is less important that how they have been raised. So they buy any breed that has been rasied outdoors, then heritage crossbreeds raised indoors, then production breeds raised indoors. Because of short supply, they do end up having to buy some production pigs raised indoors. Another interesting finding is there doesn’t seem to be (as least from what I been told) a big difference in the carcass of pigs raised outdoors (in these large facilities) and the pork consumers are “used to eating.” Apparently, pork that “tastes different” is hard to sell in large quantities. Personally, I find it hard to believe that the way the hogs were fattened on different foods wouldn’t taste differently, but as many of the fed are fed grain ad lib, maybe this shouldn’t suprize me. At first glance, I wonder but force the pigs to forage and limit thier food? Reading a little more about swine nutrition and growth has led me to understand why this might be a bad plan for a large producer. Pigs grow so fast that if they do not have ample nutrition avaliable, they will make gains in frame at the expense of gains in muscle. A pig that was limited in feed when it was young (perhaps simply because it didn’t know who to find it) could miss out on a critical window to make large gains in muscle. If fed out later in life, gains would often be in fat, and so hitting this growth period is important. Traditional breeds were more able to make use of limited or variable calorie diets, but if you are a producer looking to buy 500 piglets, this is a luxury you are likley not going to find. Moreover, even if you could find these breeds, and could feed them mostly off of forage, thier carcasses would not be as widely marketable as a crossbred production hog. I think the market is there, but for 500 hogs, it would be a challenge… also, because large produucers often raise hogs in smaller “batches” not all hogs will be on hand when seasonal food is avaliable.

So, at the end of all this, I think there is potential for a hog-producing tree crop system where maybe 60-80% of the calories come from trees and the balance comes from a mix of pasture and field crops. To make this possible, I believe there must be a planned and managed system that makes ample food avaliable thoughout the time hogs are growing. Also, I think there is greater potential for a single “batches” of spring born pigs would make best use of tree crops. I will be doing more research and will report back.

As always, comments and thoughts are welcome. Also, if anyone knows of someone doing something like this, please point me in thier way. I would be happy to call and report back (if they are comfortable with me quoting them). Suprizingly, not everyone wants their practices posted publically and I am trying my best to make sure my sources aren’t revealed. 🙂 Feel free to PM.

[Andy Carson]

Here’s an article discussing pasture as forage for pigs. Very interesting read.

http://journals.cambridge.org/article_S0029665103000417

One interesting point made in this article is how wild hogs evolved to live on forest margins, not deep woods. Perhaps this is why a mix of tree crops of other crops seems to work much better in others hands (and on paper for me). One of the other interesting points made in this paper is how pasture can contribute a huge portion of the diet for dry sows, with a range 12%-92% for individual sows. With such a wide range for individual sows, there is (and likely was) ample opportunity to select for sows that do well on pasture. I bet heritage breeds would be on the upper end of this range, maybe even at 100% calories from pasture. It is interesting to note that the contribution of pasture to growing pigs given concentrate ad lib is less than 5%. This increases, of course, if feed is limited, but limiting feed is associated with poor animal performance.

[Andy Carson]

@Carl Russell 27562 wrote:

My dream is to build a manure composting structure near the barn, with pigs housing allowing access for the pigs to one bin at a time to gain some nutrients from the manure while turning it for me. Topping this building off with a green house to use the nitrogen and CO2 rich air is also a big part.

Here’s an idea that might be easier and cheaper to build. If your greenhouse has a small adjustable vent at the top, the warm air in the green house will rise out the vent, and draw in air from whereever you design it to come from. Now, if you piled manure next to the greenhouse and covered it with a tarp, that gives you a source of warm C02 rich air to work with. Connect the two with a dry vent (or similar) and there you go! One would want to make sure the tarp wasn’t so tight as to make the environment inside anaerobic, but I bet some old tires (or other free non-rotting item) placed between the pile and the tarp in the center would do this nicely. The pile would also need exposed to oxygen either underneath or around the sides, but this would likely be required anyway. Just a thought…

[dlskidmore]

I’m surpised there isn’t much market for nut finished meats. Last time I researched this concept, acorn finished pork had a high retail value. It’s not going to do well with your convential mass market outlets, but if you can sell directly to high end resturants or end consumer foodies, you might see a better $/acre return than with corn.

If my new land comes with an oak forest I’m definately giving it a try, even if it’s just a couple hogs for family consumption. Given how long it takes to raise oak to the age it produces acorns, starting from scratch is not a single generation profitable operation. Oak does have lots of uses, so plant it if you’ve got the budget and land that’s not tilled or grazed, but the only profit is in resale value of the land or for the next generation.

[dlskidmore]

@dlskidmore 27664 wrote:

I’m surpised there isn’t much market for nut finished meats. Last time I researched this concept, acorn finished pork had a high retail value.

I’m trying to find examples to back up my memory. The highest prices come from artisan cured meats made from acorn finished pork. By itself it’s not much more than grass fed. Artisan bakeries are popping up all around, I’ve not heard of many artisan butchers besides a few ethnic places in the big cities.

[Andy Carson]

Don’t get me wrong, there does seem to be an interest (and market for) forest raised pork. What there isn’t is a large market for is skinny hogs that have had had to forage hard for thier food. This is why so many prodcers supplement… With the supplements, though, it’s hard how much of thier diet comes from mast. Simply running pigs through the woods doesn’t mean they are eating significant amounts of mast. Actually given the 1) limited time each individual fruit or nut is avaliable 2) low percentage of natural trees that prduce large amounts of mast 3) high typical stocking rates of hogs and 4) rotational grazing/foraging practices required by high stocking rates that give wildlife access to these quick to consume, easy to carry, highly desirable, foods, I bet less than 10% of the calories consumed by hogs in large systems comes from mast. Selling pork raised in this way as “acorn finished” would be a dishonest marketing ploy in my mind. “Free range” would be better term, but then you have to compete with other free range pork… You might be able to produce a few pigs in good condition that have eaten mostly acorns in natural forests, but could you charge twice the price??? Probably not, so it makes better economic sense to run twice the hogs with supplemental feed and charge a little less. It probably makes the most economic sense to run as many as the land can bear without permanant damage and feed them ad lib. Economic sense, yes, but not for me…

This is why I am a little skeptical of the potential of this system using purely natural forests. I think to have significant production, one would want to carefully plan and probably plant a series of trees with usefully timed crops. I am not interested in oaks for this either because 1) they take a long time to mature 2) there is little market for acorns as human food (as there is for alot of other tree crops) and 3) yields are quite variable from year to year, making planning difficult. That said, I am fencing in any oaks I find in my fencerow. Even though oaks as planted trees have less use for me, several types of fruit and nuts grow to production in my lifetime. I see what you are saying about productivity in our lifetimes, and you might be right about the economics of this, but I think truly sustainable systems should stretch beyond our own lifetimes. Besides, some of the area where the trees would go is largely “doing nothing” now anyway, so I suppose there’s nothing to loose.

[Tim Harrigan]

This thread is interesting, not because I am interested in running hogs in the woodlot, but because it has been making me think of how separate I have kept animals, grazing and woodlands in my thinking. I think it is because I have seen so many woodlots damaged by overstocking with cattle with no attempt to manage the overall system. And in my experience with what hogs on pasture do to the pasture they only seem to fit in a system such as Carl’s to speed the transition from woodlot to pasture or crop land. And maybe I overestimate the fencing I would need to confine hogs in a woodlot setting versus a single strand of polywire for cattle.

I have been thinking a little more about more of an integration of pasture and woodland because I think in the right circumstances with good management this type of managed ecosystem could be greater than the sum of its parts. It would challenge me to observe much more closely and thereby better understand the interactions of cattle, graze and woodlands, both specific species response and the flux of opportunities that emerge throughout the seasons and over longer periods of time. I have noticed a different mix of forage grasses and broadleaves near the edge of the woodland, mostly on the north edge where it is shaded most of the day. Cooler air and soil temperature, greater soil moisture, delayed maturity of plants so higher forage quality longer and later when forage in full sunlight begins to slump, grasses a little less competitive with legumes and other forages like plantain that are palatable and help provide a more diverse, mixed ration.

So I think that the issue is not that these systems are not sustainable, it is that they are rarely managed in a way that allows a balance of resources. These systems are more complicated and knowledge intensive than either pasture or woodland alone. Interesting stuff.

[dlskidmore]

@Tim Harrigan 27671 wrote:

I have been thinking a little more about more of an integration of pasture and woodland because I think in the right circumstances with good management this type of managed ecosystem could be greater than the sum of its parts. It would challenge me to observe much more closely and thereby better understand the interactions of cattle, graze and woodlands, both specific species response and the flux of opportunities that emerge throughout the seasons and over longer periods of time. I have noticed a different mix of forage grasses and broadleaves near the edge of the woodland, mostly on the north edge where it is shaded most of the day. Cooler air and soil temperature, greater soil moisture, delayed maturity of plants so higher forage quality longer and later when forage in full sunlight begins to slump, grasses a little less competitive with legumes and other forages like plantain that are palatable and help provide a more diverse, mixed ration.

In an integrated system, the pigs, or goats for that matter, could be used for management of pasture under cover. If you can get preferential eating of the low shrubbery that interferes with grass growth, and harvest enough of the larger trees to get a dappled sun environment…

[Carl Russell]

@near horse 27644 wrote:

Hey Carl,

Is that 3rd picture the “famed” Earthwise Pig-in a Poke Roundup?

Seriously, I have a couple of questions. Did you breed that sow and farrow those piglets? What breed/cross are they? I always associate red with Durocs but know there’s a lot of interest in heritage breeds like Red Wattles (although I don’t see any wattles here). How did you all decide on what type of hogs to raise? They sure look good and healthy to me! Nice.

Along the agroforestry thread – the multiple use idea is discussed quite a bit in much of the permaculture literature, although they usually focus on more tropical environments.

Yes that was the famous round-up. And yes we bred and farrowed those pigs. Sows are Tamworth x Berkshire, and the boar was pure Tamworth. The Tamworth is the red, Berkshire is spotted. They grew to be really nice pigs.

Carl

[Does’ Leap]

We raise a dozen or so pigs a year in semi-forested environments. My aim is to have a variety of savanna-like areas on my farm somewhat akin to a shaded pasture. When it is hot, that is where my goats go. After selecting the best shade trees (generally red oak and hard maple) I will clear the rest and fence it off for pigs. They generally get moved every couple of weeks. During the summer months they have no shelter. They do great as long as they have ample shade. We pump whey from our cheese operation to the pigs and they consume it all. I will also put out a self-feeder http://www.draftanimalpower.com/showthread.php?2730-Self-Feeder-For-Hogs. However, when pigs have unlimited grain, they tend to be less aggressive in turning over soil. Depending on my goals (early market weight vs. renovation) I may or may not put out the feeder. I have 4 three-month old pigs who have had nothing but whey and what they can scavenge from the semi-forested environment they are in. This winter I had 2 pigs that reached market weight by January but I wanted some whey consumers when we were in full-cheese production in March. I kept them on a liquid only diet for the last 3 months. They were healthy and dressed out well at 200+ lbs each. Regarding flavor, folks love our pork. I tasted some “supermarket” pork at my in-laws a while back and couldn’t believe how tasteless and dry it was – like a whole different meat altogether.

George

[Andy Carson]

George,
I am glad you do this, it really gives me (and all of us) another case to look at. I think it is an especially important one because it sounds like your stocking density is much closer to what the land can support. Your case would allow for some specific calculations of how many calories are avaliable from forest both in nut/fruit season and out of it. I think this is important because it seems hogs are capable of finding significacnt amounts of food that I wouldn’t have even expected to “be there” and didn’t enter into my calculations. The manuscript posted earlier mentioned pigs can consume up to 1200 earthworms per day, for example, and this is am important source of protein on pasture. I would have never guessed the number would have been this high or that it would be important. So, a couple specific questions, if you don’t mind, George:

How many hogs do you stock per acre? Do you have to do anything “special” to protect desirable trees?
What are the main mast producing tree species in your forest/pasture plots? Oaks? Any idea what percentage of the total trees are mast producing? Do you know thier average age and/or size?
Does your stocking rate vary depending by season and/or types of trees in the pasture?
How much whey are the pigs fed fed? Do they consume it all?
How does the palatability of whey compare to grain and forage (maybe it’s important to feed a nutritional, but not “yummy” feed)?
Do you farrow your pigs? If not, do you have a hard time finding pigs when you need them?
Do you have any experience with heritage breeds, and have you noticed any performance differences in your set-up?

Reguarding the taste of the pork, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think I would be proud to raise pork that tastes good to me, even if some consumers prefer supermarket pork. I think this is a concern for someone wanted to move huge quantities on the open market, and not as big of a concern for smaller producers who can meet with customers and explain why thier pork tastes better (or at least different). Sorry to bombard you with questions, George, and thanks for any information you can provide.

[Andy Carson]

By the way, I appreciate that this conversation is branching out into other species (cows, goats, etc). I think that pigs might be able to utilize mast better than many species, but there is forage avaliable in the forest too. I think the pigs make for a good “case study,” but I am sure many of the concepts from this discussion would apply to other farm animals. Tree selection, rotations, and stocking rates, would likely be different for each different animal species, but I think the same concepts would apply. I think if there were standards and criterea developed for how to ecologically and sustainably utilize tree covered areas, this could be useful to alot of people. There’s alot of fencerows out there, as well as alot of margional ground that might be more productive with tree cover. There’s also alot of undeveloped forest, but I am still skeptical about if this is a good place for “agroforestery,” both from a practical, economical, and ecological point of view.

[near horse]

From my days as a student in wildlife biology, it seems I recall a research paper looking at grey squirrels and acorn use that compared white oak acorns to red oak. Apparently, the white oak had lower levels of tannins than the reds as well as a different level of lipids. Tannins are known to negatively impact protein digestion although some species (like deer) have evolved a mechanism to deal with tannins. So in the squirrel study, it appeared that the red oak acorns were cached for later use while the white oaks were eaten more readily. But my point is that acorns can provide an energy dense food but one should probably make sure that sufficient protein is available for the foraging hogs.

I agree that consumer tastes can vary but IMO the “selling point” is in the “how the pigs are raised”. If there was a continuous loop of video showing conventional production over that section of pork and another loop showing a non-confinement system over that meat section, the confinement setups would go out of business in pretty short order.

Andy, I’ve read that Large Black Hogs (a breed) are supposedly better pasture animals but they also say they don’t root as much as other breeds. Seems contradictory. The LBH are pretty popular right now. Also, here’s a link to a pastured pork producer that’s using some European wild boar stock.

riverdoghog.blogspot.com/2009/03/european-wild-boar.html

[Does’ Leap]

@Countymouse 27693 wrote:

George,
I am glad you do this, it really gives me (and all of us) another case to look at. I think it is an especially important one because it sounds like your stocking density is much closer to what the land can support. Your case would allow for some specific calculations of how many calories are avaliable from forest both in nut/fruit season and out of it. I think this is important because it seems hogs are capable of finding significacnt amounts of food that I wouldn’t have even expected to “be there” and didn’t enter into my calculations. The manuscript posted earlier mentioned pigs can consume up to 1200 earthworms per day, for example, and this is am important source of protein on pasture. I would have never guessed the number would have been this high or that it would be important. So, a couple specific questions, if you don’t mind, George:

How many hogs do you stock per acre? Do you have to do anything “special” to protect desirable trees?
What are the main mast producing tree species in your forest/pasture plots? Oaks? Any idea what percentage of the total trees are mast producing? Do you know thier average age and/or size?
Does your stocking rate vary depending by season and/or types of trees in the pasture?
How much whey are the pigs fed fed? Do they consume it all?
How does the palatability of whey compare to grain and forage (maybe it’s important to feed a nutritional, but not “yummy” feed)?
Do you farrow your pigs? If not, do you have a hard time finding pigs when you need them?
Do you have any experience with heritage breeds, and have you noticed any performance differences in your set-up?

Reguarding the taste of the pork, I couldn’t agree with you more. I think I would be proud to raise pork that tastes good to me, even if some consumers prefer supermarket pork. I think this is a concern for someone wanted to move huge quantities on the open market, and not as big of a concern for smaller producers who can meet with customers and explain why thier pork tastes better (or at least different). Sorry to bombard you with questions, George, and thanks for any information you can provide.

Andy:

See the responses to your questions below.

George

How many hogs do you stock per acre? I would guess around 8/acre
Do you have to do anything “special” to protect desirable trees? No. I have not found pigs to be a problem with trees.
What are the main mast producing tree species in your forest/pasture plots? Oaks.
Any idea what percentage of the total trees are mast producing? Depends on where their paddock is 10-25%
Do you know thier average age and/or size? Around 18″DBH.
Does your stocking rate vary depending by season and/or types of trees in the pasture? Yes. Rather than putting pen to paper, I look at the prospective paddock and the size of the pigs and size accordingly.
How much whey are the pigs fed fed? We do about a dozen pigs a year and they consumer approximately 10,000 gallons of whey.
Do they consume it all? Generally, yes. If they are small and we have lots of whey when our goats have freshened in the spring, they can’t keep up.
How does the palatability of whey compare to grain and forage (maybe it’s important to feed a nutritional, but not “yummy” feed)? They love the whey. It’s liquid so hard to compare in palatability with solid foods.
Do you farrow your pigs? If not, do you have a hard time finding pigs when you need them? I do not have any sows. The numbers for keeping a sow (at least for my set-up) don’t work. I don’t have problems finding pigs.
Do you have any experience with heritage breeds, and have you noticed any performance differences in your set-up? I have raised some heritage breeds and find no difference in performance or taste.

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