an apple a day
We've got two hungry pigs. (Practically starving if you believed them by the amount they squeal at dinner time!). We also have 7 or 8 apple trees with a bumper crop of apples this year.
A perfect match! Pigs and apples. Only our boys aren't very keen on getting one portion of fruit and veg a day, let alone 5.
For the first few days, when everything was new and exciting, they did eat a few bits of chopped up apples and they chewed around the stones of some plums and damsons too. But since they've got used to a twice daily delivery of pig pellets and acorns, they've gone off the fruit. We didn't understand this, as our pig book says to 'give your pig a treat, like a nice apple'. They wouldn't eat them, let alone see it as a treat!
So our collection of windfalls was set to sit in the shed, ready to be made into yet more apple sauce. (Which we will be needing lots of, once the pigs become pork joints!). Until we found a solution to our pig-apple problem!
Thanks to the lovely people at our favourite piggy online forums - River Cottage and Its not easy being green, we came across the idea of apple-mush. Its basically like making babyfood, for pigs.
Take a small box load of apples, or damsons, pears or any other free fruit you have lying around in your (or your neighbours) gardens.
Take a food mixer and pulp fruit into a surprisingly appetising and sweet smelling mush.
Add a handfull of mixed grain - chicken food is ideal, pig pellets work too - to give it a little substance.
Add mixture to food trough attended by two hungry pigs.
Watch as snouts get covered in apple goo and the rest of the mixture disappears!
An apple a day ..... keeps the pigs happy and healthy (and makes pork nice and sweet tasting!).
A perfect match! Pigs and apples. Only our boys aren't very keen on getting one portion of fruit and veg a day, let alone 5.
For the first few days, when everything was new and exciting, they did eat a few bits of chopped up apples and they chewed around the stones of some plums and damsons too. But since they've got used to a twice daily delivery of pig pellets and acorns, they've gone off the fruit. We didn't understand this, as our pig book says to 'give your pig a treat, like a nice apple'. They wouldn't eat them, let alone see it as a treat!
So our collection of windfalls was set to sit in the shed, ready to be made into yet more apple sauce. (Which we will be needing lots of, once the pigs become pork joints!). Until we found a solution to our pig-apple problem!
Thanks to the lovely people at our favourite piggy online forums - River Cottage and Its not easy being green, we came across the idea of apple-mush. Its basically like making babyfood, for pigs.
Take a small box load of apples, or damsons, pears or any other free fruit you have lying around in your (or your neighbours) gardens.
Take a food mixer and pulp fruit into a surprisingly appetising and sweet smelling mush.
Add a handfull of mixed grain - chicken food is ideal, pig pellets work too - to give it a little substance.
Add mixture to food trough attended by two hungry pigs.
Watch as snouts get covered in apple goo and the rest of the mixture disappears!
An apple a day ..... keeps the pigs happy and healthy (and makes pork nice and sweet tasting!).
Labels: food
2 Comments:
Charlie - good to read that your pigs are coming along nicely - more photos please!
We finally got a 400kg stash of apples which is about 2/3rd used up now and they're quite selective in which ones they eat.. until they get hungry enough to scoff them all that is.
I think we're going to have to bite the bullet and splash out on an electric fence for them - containing them in their paddock is proving challenging and we've got more land ready and waiting to be ploughed over.
Perhaps after you've been through the 'pig-in-a-day' DVD you'd write up a post with a review of it? I'd love to hear what you think of it as I've been half tempted to treat myself to it for Christmas!
- Adrian
Hi Adrian!
Will certainly do a review of Hugh's pig in a day DVD, I can't imagine Sam waiting any longer than Boxing day to watch it!
Will try and get more photies up soon, its so hard with it being dark so early here now. They have grown lots though, and are definatly turning into real characters!
Charlie ;o)
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