Pig feed options in the tropics

Animal Options
#21

Bonjou Weslet,
Kijan ou ye? M travay souvan kote Gwomon Atibonit.
There is general information on pigs and information on alternative pig feed at:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170313204635/http://haitireconstruction.ning.com/page/pig-project
A quick internet search for banana silage finds many resources including:

Raising Hogs on Banana Silage in Myanmar

#22

For anyone interested, I have attached a poster summary of our most recent ‘Farm-Generated Pig Feeds’ trial from our farm here at ECHO Asia in Thailand. We compared weight gain of pigs fed with our Fermented Banana Stem based feeds and those fed commercial feeds. It was very interesting and informative! Stay tuned for more updates as we continue to look more into this topic…

Farm-Generated_Pig_ Feeds_Poster.pdf (2.4 MB)

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#23

See also:
https://web.archive.org/web/20150512012535/http://haitireconstruction.ning.com/page/pig-project

#24

At the University of the Nations in Kona, Hawaii, we are using and teaching the deep litter system for piggeries developed in Korean Natural Farming https://www.ctahr.hawaii.edu/oc/freepubs/pdf/LM-23.pdf. That approach to farming also includes fermented foods, such as banana leaves, but we have not tried these yet. If any of this might be helpful to you. Email me at byrdv2@gmail.com.

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#25

Thanks Billy and all for the replies to my earlier post on “Pig feed options in the tropics”. I had my email address wrong in the setup so I have not been getting notified of all the various replies. Think I have it corrected now.

A most important thing I learned about “Pig feed options in the tropics” is to get a breed that efficiently converts non standard feeds into pork. I ended up choosing the “Large Black Pig” breed (LBP) because it is noted for hardiness, eating almost anything, docile and more marbling in the meat. Plus I did not have a lot of other affordable choices. I now have a 4-month LBP boar and six 6-month LBP gilts. We are working hard to get an organic food supply for them but they are currently eating mostly bought feed including some rice bran.

The major feed “trees” we are planning to use are:

  1. Moringa/Malunggay (24% protein) We now have more than 6000 of these sprouted and are working to have over 10000 by rainy season (late June).
    You can see more details at
    http://mountainair.farm and
    https://www.facebook.com/groups/CFTWI/.
    It has been a long ordeal getting to this point of 6000 sprouts. I will try to do a primer on how to start Moringa… there is a LOT of bad information on the internet.
    We plan to grow the Moringa in 2 meter wide hedges with the plants 0.5m on center (4 plants for each meter of hedge). We will clip them every 30cm to make they grow wider like bushes with the goal of a solid hedge at the height of 1 meter. We are on a mountain, so our hedges will follow contours. By end of rainy season (mid-september) we hope to have at least the first 10000 planted into our hedge rows.
  2. Madre de Aqua (Trichanthera Gigantea) (16% protein) We bought 1500 rooted cuttings, out of these we now have 420. Lots of mistakes by our staff… but we are learning. We plan to order 400 more as soon as the buses are running again. The trick we learned is to NOT order too many at one time.
    Madre de Aqua is probably the #1 alternative pig food in the Philippines. It appears to be easy to grow and some say it is likely producing it’s own nitrogen even though not a legume.
    We plan to grow it in hedges much like described above.
  3. Mulberry (20% protein) - We bought 1000 rooted cuttings… they were all alive when delivered but we managed to kill 999. We are going to try again soon with 100 this time. We plan to grow these on trellises with each tree fed by effluent/runoff from our various piggeries.
  4. Lakatan Banana (6% protein)- We ordered 1000 meriplants prior to this covid19 mess and still have not received them. We hope to get them soon. The plan is to ferment the stalks for pig feed.
  5. A variety of other plants including LabLab within the hedge rows where they will climb, Pueraria, Napier, sweet potato vines, taro and more.
  6. Also will try to get some sugar cane for use in fermenting the banana stalks and napier.
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#26

I would caution against making a big deal about glyphosate. I think this is a personal preference issue based on unsubstantiated and poorly peer reviewed research on the dangers of glyphosate which I consider rather benign considering the residual levels in feed sources. Roundup/glyphosate is a wonderful tool that we will start to lose (like DDT in indoor spray programs and Golden Rice which resulted in 50 to 100 million of lost lives unnecessarily) if we don’t start holding people accountable to verified, substantiated research and teach people to compare risks. I would be a whole lot more concerned about feed sources with mycotoxins, particularly alphatoxins and oversupplying feeds with antinutritional factors which are common in many legume fodders. Also this is a quote from Feedapedia.org which I think one needs to consider their advice… “Moringa leaves are a valuable source of protein for ruminants but they have a moderate palatability. They are used in smallholder rabbit farming in several African countries. Using moringa leaves for feeding poultry, pigs and fish is feasible but only in limited amounts due to the presence of fibre and antinutritional factors. Moringa oil seed cake, the by-product of oil extraction, is not very palatable to livestock and mainly used as green manure or a flocculating agent in water purification. Moringa seeds appear to be toxic to rabbits.” There is a lot of good qualities in Moringa as a nutritional supplement but as a livestock feed it needs to be balanced and not overfed.

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#27

I have a paper copy of this book:
Fodder Banks For Sustainable Pig Production Systems
CIPAV foundation. Cali, Colombia. 208 p.
Sinopsis
Feeding pigs with tree leaves? How odd it sounds for many of us!. Not for smallholders from tropical countries. There, small pig producers cannot afford concentrates to feed their animals and they see fodder banks as a smart alternative to produce valuable sources of protein and minerals in a sustainable manner. This book aims to summarize the information available on the use of tree leaves in pig nutrition and on the benefits of the fodder bank systems for the environment and the farmer.

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#28

Search the issues of “Livestock Research for Rural Development” at:
https://www.lrrd.net/search

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#29

Here are publications that mention the use of taro as a fodder crop for pig:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347348690_Perception_gaps_that_may_explain_the_status_of_taro_Colocasia_esculenta_as_an_orphan_crop

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348993566_2012_Bavi_ANINUE_Proceeding

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