Everything You Need To Know About Feeding Pumpkins To Your Pigs.

[@Fiftyone50again]

Churches that sell pumpkins are a great source as well. More often than not they don’t sell all that they have and are more than happy to get them pulled off the lot come around November.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

These come from a church that does a pumpkin patch fall festival. They deliver them to the farm.

[@sevenmile]

I grow squash and pumpkins for the grandkids and bees, and feed them to the hogs kinda for fun. It gives them something to do, and helps gut fill breeding stock when they are being limit fed commercial feed. Thanks for challenging the notion that pumpkins are a de-wormer!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks for watching. Pumpkins can be a great supplement to pigs but they are a lot of work. Pumpkins may work as a dewormer for some people but not for me.

[@josephbrowning4220]

I'm not a farmer and I live in a city in The Netherlands, but I'm loving learning what you're teaching!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Cool, thanks! I’m beginning to realize that a lot of non farmers watch our channel. I appreciate you letting me know that your watching. Just out of curiosity, what do you find so interesting?

[@josephbrowning4220]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms The plain-talking utilitarian aspect of what you're doing and why you're doing it. It's very no-nonsense, straightforward and easy to understand.

[@GladRags]

@@josephbrowning4220 Yes! Even a layman can understand everything

[@jasonhatfield4747]

Wow, you got the mother load of free pumpkins! I've been trying for a couple of years now to score that many or even half that. Our pigs (kunes) eat them with fervor. We use them as a supplement to their feed in the late fall and early winter when they are taken off pasture and no longer have access to "greens." So, they get the same amount of grain as they always do, but the pumpkins are extra. They also get fermented alfalfa hay.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thank you for watching! You ferment alfalfa hay for them? Is the alfalfa fermented as "haylage" in bales or do you get regular bales or pellets of alfalfa and ferment it yourself?

[@WhiteWolfeHU]

I remember we always fed alfalfa we cut after letting it wilt for 1 day, helps with bloating. Fermenting the grains In the milk would be the biggest advantage that I would see here… also growing pumpkins yourself or growing other feed crops. If you have a big garden and just a few pigs, there’s a lot that gets recycled that way into feed.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Pumpkins aren’t really the most productive thing to grow in terms of space. We have some other videos that show things to plant but brassicas, clovers, and other legumes like alfalfa tend to be the best. Then some grasses like cereal rye have higher protein content in various stages of their life cycles.

[@victoriousone6925]

Anyone else cringing at the trailer doors almost getting bent while dumping the pumpkins?😮 Been there, done that, & never doing that again😅 Awesome video! Thank you for the info!!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

You and me both! He did not bend them though. He fixed them before dumping them.

[@victoriousone6925]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms ya thank GOD he stopped tilting when he did haha! We’re going to see if we can round up some pumpkins this year for our pigs. Next year, we will grow some just for this purpose, along with some other types of squash & beets.

[@spoton5981]

Im really enjoying your content man. You discuss so many interesting ideas in great detail. Thanks a bunch

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thank you for the feedback and for watching. I hope the content helps you bud.

[@srksii]

I grow pumpkins for seeds, take seeds and cut rest and feed to pigs. Small amount, like 3 pumpkins per load, fed to pigs in few days. Problem is my father that goes full panic mode every time he see even a bit of liquid poop. Cmon man, dont you get a bit of diarrhea when you change your regular food habit!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

MY pigs eat lots and lots of diverse foods. Especially pumpkins. They poop orange this time of the year.

[@buffalopatriot]

This was an excellent video. I do pick up a lot of feed (fruits & vegetables) from local farmers and green grocers to feed my girls. The people we sell sausage to gladly give us their kitchen scraps. Best of luck.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

That’s great to hear. There are lots of alternative feeds that people don’t often consider using. That’s a great way to reduce waste too!

[@buffalopatriot]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms btw… I subbed you as well. Looking forward to learning a lot.

[@burnshirtvalleyfarm6337]

Ive had generational sows and boars for over 20 yrs. Ive never used chemical dewormer. I add diatomaceous earth (food grade) and garlic powder to the breeders grain when I take them off pasture before pigging out. I focus on moving them to new pasture every few days and make sure they do not come back to the same land for over a year. I should be doing it more, moving and DE and garlic, then I do. Even though I do get worm loads I have never had an issue get our of hand.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Interesting!

[@EthanPDobbins]

Ive often wondered about planting a pasture with pumpkins especially those ones that grow up to 300+ pounds. Maybe broadcast field peas and corn and turnips. Turn them in on it in the fall.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Something like that should work pretty well. What you plant with the pumpkins would depend on your growing area. Here in Mississippi, field peas and turnips would not grow when the pumpkins grow, but cowpeas, soybeans, rape, corn and others would. Do you have pigs? If so give it a try and let me know how it works out. I am working on some specific grazing mixes for pigs this year too.

[@EthanPDobbins]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms I've had four. Had a couple I raised myself from a piglet and a couple that were a little older. I've kept them in a lot with flowing water & fed kitchen scraps, garden scraps and grain. This last one I'm getting ready to package his bacon today. He was born late last year and was 475lb when i slaughtered him. Also little secret about turnips if you're not growing them for human consumption you can grow them just about anytime. Animals don't care if they are a little fibrous and hot from bolting. But I reckon you could broadcast later for a nice tender crop of greens and bulbs. If you kept a rotation of a few separate pens you could use a couple through the summer and keep one planted in stuff that will feed them through the beginning of fall and winter. When you turn them out of the spring pasture in late summer you could broadcast the field peas & turnips and whatever other cool weather crops even ryegrass and then turn them onto that. I saw a video on KZbin from a fellow who runs pigs on flat pasture and he would give it a till (which may be a little overkill since pigs are nature's tillers,) then broadcast ryegrass and drag it in then rotate his pigs on to it when it got about a foot tall. I know whatever you do if you want them to have something to eat you've just about got to broadcast plant it because they are like a herd of mini excavators. Won't be a perennial plant left in there aside from trees.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

I’ll have to try planting turnips more. When I planted them in the spring they did not form much of a turnip. Rape and collards tend to survive our hot humid weather better than other brassicas like turnips, from my experience. But rape is so cheap and available I plant more of it than any other brassica.

[@EthanPDobbins]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms turnip is great for winter because the bulb survives the cold. The greens will also survive some light frost for a while.

[@heidil.4651]

This was SO INFORMATIVE and helpful! Thank you! I only have 3 pet pigs, they are my oink babies, and I’m terrified to feed them something that could hurt them,

[@soledaom8747]

Just found your Chanel and I really like your explanation, great job man!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks!

[@farnorthhomested844]

i always heard that burned logs, (charcol), gets rid of worms in pigs.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

We have a video on charcoal aka biochar. I feed it to pigs as well but I’m not sure how well it works. Than you for watching!

[@boatwrightfarm]

Pumpkin pie for piggies great information 👍

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thank you for watching!

[@boatwrightfarm]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms Enjoyed I need me some pumpkins

[@ninjabeatz905]

Thank you much appreciated

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks for watching. Glad that you enjoyed it or that it at least helped.

[@dawnyoung9898]

Looks like a good workout...

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Yes it is.

[@gmwwc]

Dude, I want you to sharpen our tools! The deer like it too, and turkeys.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks! We have turkeys everywhere.

[@so-dan-bought-some-land]

The guy with the dump trailer is going to ruin his doors if he doesn't lock them back. It is not a cheap fix either.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

It’s not a cheap fix! Fortunately the ground was soft and he didn’t keep lifting the trailer. The next three loads he did lock the doors. Thank you for watching!

[@andyknight240]

When feeding pumpkins or free produce that is going to waste from grocery stores, what are your thoughts about that produce being sprayed with pesticides and fertilizers? I am raising my pigs using Non-GMO feed, so I am unsure if that aligns with the quality of pork I am going for.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Non GMO feed will ofter or even typically have pesticides and fertilizers applied to it. It just wont have the GMO DNA to tolerate glyphosate or specific pests. Frankly it probably would not matter.

[@andyknight240]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms true. Thanks for the reply. Trying to feed them the healthiest I can until I can grow my own cover crop to help supplement.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Good deal.

[@louisguerin8443]

New subscriber here....thank you. We are getting our first two pigs in the Spring and have a pig pen in a wooded area; it is 75 feet by 75. feet, do you think it will be large enough for two pigs?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Welcome! And thanks! Yes. But you will need to have lots of leaves, woodchips etc to absorb the urine and manure or not will likely stink as the pigs get bigger and eat more.

[@TreasureFiend]

I like this, thanks for sharing.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thank you for letting us know that you enjoyed it! We appreciate it! Thank you for watching.

[@whitshane3511]

Great video. "Punkins for Pigs"!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks for watching!

[@Sharkdog11b]

15:05 and that’s how guys break off the back door to the dump trailer. Cool video tho good stuff.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Yes, funny enough, he caught it just before he broke it off. He remembered the lesson the next year though! Thanks for watching.

[@markpiersall9815]

Consider investing in knee pads. Consider installing a Screech Owl nest box. Owls eat rodents which host ticks. There are not enough nesting cavities for these valuable birds. Will eat Deer mice and White-footed Forest mice in exchange for housing.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

👍

[@wab1954]

What kind of pigs are the hairy ones?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

All of the pigs in the video are Mangalitsa or Mangalitsa crossed with standard breeds like hampshire, chester white, duroc, and Hereford.

[@louisguerin8443]

What is dump milk?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Expired or nearly expired milk that dairy distributors “dump” or consider waste.

[@phylthamendment]

Thank you

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thank you for watching!

[@MistressOP]

yeah i wouldn't feed pumpkins into an area they wallowed to begin with. Second if you are going to feed pumpkins. move em. because what happens is you feed that and it spreads the load because your feeding into an area again and again. you gotta leave that load behind or it spreads to the whole group with pumpkins. the weak ones can't carry the load well. and there's always weak ones. With load cycle you always keep it moving. We have a pasture that has planted sainfoin and we take them through the sainfoin mix. do fast fast moves awhile doing that. one so they don't hurt the stand and second so that you are leaving behind that load.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

I’m not sure what you mean when you talk about “the load.” Are you talking about the helminth or parasite load?

[@dantheman9135]

ThankQ

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thank you bud!

[@paddyt4043]

What about apples

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

We don’t feed a lot of apples here, they do t grow well in the south. We do feed some pears though. They are mostly a carb and mineral source I think, but I haven’t looked into it.

[@emildrimbea3210]

very nice

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

thanks

[@kurtcooper3699]

SUBSCRIBED!

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

thank you!

[@russellwashington6588]

WTF is “duck milk”?

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Sorry. “Dump milk”. It’s the milk that the distributor dumps because it is approaching or past the best by date.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

I’m laughing out loud because a 7 year old neighbor was helping one day and I was joking with him about goose milk!

[@russellwashington6588]

@@DowdleFamilyFarms Thanks. That's HILARIOUS! It reminds me of the old game where everyone says how they misheard song lyrics. Like in that Eagles song, I used to hear "The warm smell of colitas" as: 'The warm smell of police men' ... WHAT???? No!

[@michaelripperger5674]

It’s really hard to milk ducks… 🦆 their nipples are soooo small

[@hardware64]

I think I'll take making a couple more trips over cutting hundreds of pumpkins by hand one by one to fit a bit more in the loader. Would the deworming effect pumpkins have on pigs make the manure less viable for composting? That would be a big loss of value

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

That’s hilarious. I had forgotten about cutting those pumpkins. Very quickly after publishing this video, I started smashing the pumpkins a bit with the loader which made it easier. However, the pigs quickly learn how to eat the I smashed pumpkins once they know that they like pumpkins!

[@titanstreehouse4555]

I'm intrested in this as well I just emptied our pig pen on to our garden area

[@sassyhairdresser]

My cousin ❤️

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Thanks for watching!

[@MistressOP]

try putting pumpkin into a chipper it's even better.

[@MistressOP]

you can belt the pumpkins right into the chipper

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

That sounds like a lot of work chipping up the pumpkins!

[@DovidM]

Cattle will graze the pumpkin vines.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Interesting.

[@kurtcooper3699]

U NEED TO GIVE IVERMECTIN 2 WEEKS BEFORE SHE GIVES BIRTH & THE PIGLETS BEFORE WEENED.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

We have a regular worming protocol with both ivermectin and febendazole.

[@Yankeeprepperasshat]

Man, I love me a stall cool glass of duck milk.

[@DowdleFamilyFarms]

Lol.