The straw, stems and leaf residues of some crops are excellent pig feed. Used to feed pigs, it is not only rich in nutrients and pigs love to eat it, but it can also save feed and reduce the cost of raising pigs. The straw, stems and leaf residues of the following crops can be used to feed pigs.

  1. Sweet potato vine

During the sweet potato harvest season, a large number of sweet potato vines are produced. If these sweet potato vines are dried in the sun, crushed into powder with a grinder, and then fed to pigs after saccharification, they will become a good feed for pigs.

Sweet potato vine powder contains more starch, crude protein, crude fiber, minerals and vitamins, etc., making it a high-quality roughage. At present, many pig farmers mix it directly into concentrated feed to feed pigs. Although it can save concentrated feed and reduce the cost of raising pigs, the utilization rate is low and the palatability is poor.

If sweet potato vine powder is saccharified and the starch is converted into maltose, and then used to feed pigs, the utilization rate can be increased and the palatability can be improved.

The method of saccharifying sweet potato vine powder is: put the crushed sweet potato vine powder into a clean wooden barrel or cylinder, pour 2-2.5 times of 80℃-90℃ hot water, and stir it into a thick paste; then , cover with a wooden lid, and prevent the temperature in the barrel or cylinder from dropping rapidly to keep it between 55°C and 60°C; after about 4 hours, the sweet potato vine powder will be saccharified. At this time, the sweet potato vine powder is yellow and sweet, and can be used to feed pigs.

In order to speed up the saccharification process of sweet potato vine powder, when the sweet potato vine powder is heated and stirred in water, malt equivalent to 2% of the weight of sweet potato vine powder can be added. The saccharification temperature should not be too low, otherwise the sweet potato vine powder will not be saccharified thoroughly and will become sour. It is necessary to know how to feed pigs as soon as saccharification is completed. In summer, it can be saccharified in the morning, fed at noon, saccharified at noon, and fed in the evening; even in winter, the storage time of sweet potato vine powder after saccharification should not exceed 10 hours.

  1. Sunflower plate

Sunflower plate is a sunflower plate with sunflower seeds removed. In the past, when people harvested sunflowers, they often burned the sunflower disks as waste and used them as fuel after threshing the seeds. Actually, this is a pity, because the sunflower discs can be processed to feed pigs.

According to measurements, sunflower disks contain 7%-9% crude protein, 6.5-10.5% crude fat, 17.7% crude fiber, 43.9% nitrogen-free extract, 2.4%-3% pectin, and 10.1% ash, of which The content of crude protein and nitrogen-free extract is comparable to that of grain. The aromatic fructose contained in the sunflower plate can increase the appetite of pigs.

Sunflower disc powder can be made by drying the sunflower discs in the sun, tearing them into small pieces by hand, and then crushing them in a grinder. The nutritional value of this kind of sunflower disk powder fed to pigs per 100 kilograms can be equivalent to 60-66 kilograms of corn or 70-80 kilograms of barley and other concentrated feeds.

Since sunflower trays contain a lot of calcium and fructose, they are very suitable for feeding piglets and sows. Feeding pigs can promote growth. Therefore, when farmers harvest sunflowers, they must keep the sunflower trays for pig feed and not waste them.

  1. Soybean leaves

Soybean leaves are rich in crude protein and crude fat, as well as calcium and phosphorus. Therefore, when protein feed is lacking, using soybean leaves to feed pigs is an effective way to increase feed protein. There are three specific feeding methods:

  1. Fresh feeding

Collect the fresh soybean leaves, remove impurities and foreign matter, chop them into pieces, and mix them directly into the pig’s diet, accounting for about 30% of the diet. For piglets under 30 kg, chopped soybean leaves can be cooked in a pot and then mixed into the pig’s diet.

  1. Silage

Soybean leaves are low in sugar and rich in protein. Suitable for semi-dry silage. The method is: air-dry the soybean leaves until the moisture content is about 50%, then roughly chop them with a knife, then put them into silage pits, tanks or plastic silage bags, compact and seal them tightly. When you need to feed pigs, take it out and mix it into the pig’s diet. The feeding amount accounts for about 25% of the diet.

  1. smash

Place the soybean leaves in a dry and ventilated place, dry in the shade until the moisture content is about 30%, then spread them in the sun to dry quickly or put them in a drying room to dry them to reduce the moisture content to less than 10%, and then crush them into soybeans with a grinder Leaf powder. This soybean leaf powder can be stored for a considerable period of time. When used to feed pigs, it can be directly mixed into the pig’s diet, and the feeding amount can account for 20-40% of the diet.

The best time to collect soybean leaves used for pig feed is when the soybeans are waxy. At this time, not only will the soybean leaves be greener, more nutritious and contain less crude fiber, but the yield and quality of the soybeans will not be affected.

  1. Grape pomace

The grape pomace left after grape winemaking is used to feed pigs instead of cornmeal, and the effect is very good.

According to scientific measurements, every kilogram of dry matter in grape pomace contains 5.7 megajoules of digestible energy, 86 grams of digestible protein, 13.2% crude protein, 13.2% crude fat, 29.4% crude fiber, 0.67% calcium, and 0.32% phosphorus. Also contains a variety of vitamins and trace elements. Compared with corn, it has 32 grams more digestible protein per kilogram, 3.7% more crude protein, 0.65% more calcium, 0.09% more phosphorus, and 1.57% more lysine. Therefore, in the current situation where corn is in short supply and prices are rising, it is indeed a good way to feed pigs with cheap grape pomace instead of cornmeal.

To feed pigs with grape pomace, it is best to dry the grape pomace to make dried grape pomace, process and crush it, and then replace cornmeal to make mixed feed before feeding. The proportion in the mixed feed is generally 10%-20%. If the proportion is larger, an appropriate amount of green and juicy feed needs to be added.

According to a pig farm test, using about 15% of dried grape pomace powder in mixed feed instead of corn flour to feed pigs can save about 50 kilograms of corn on average for each fattened pig and reduce costs by more than 20 yuan.

  1. Apple leaves falling

Every time when the apple orchards are cleared, a large number of fallen leaves will fall from the apple trees. These fallen apple leaves have high nutritional value and can be used to feed pigs.

According to the test of dried apple leaves, the content of moisture is 5.1%, crude fat 11%, crude protein 10.8%, nitrogen-free extract 49.4%, crude fiber 12.1%, crude ash 10.6%, calcium 1.9%, phosphorus 0.07% and contains multiple vitamins.

If you use fallen apple leaves to feed pigs, you can collect them when the apple trees are falling, remove impurities, and rinse them with clean water. If the quantity is small, it can be directly incorporated into the pig’s diet; if the quantity is large, in order to prevent mildew and deterioration, 0.5-1 kg of salt can be added for every 100 kg of fallen apple leaves and stored in the feed tank. When loading fallen apple leaves into the feed tank, they should be compacted in layers and sealed tightly after filling the tank to ensure quality during storage. After being stored in the pond for one month, after fermentation, the apple leaves in the pond become soft, slightly yellow in color, and have a slight aroma of wine, and then they can be fed to pigs. They have good palatability and pigs love to eat them. When first feeding, in the first 10 days, gradually increase the amount of fallen apple leaves from 10% to 20% of the pig’s diet; in the next 15 days, increase the amount of fallen apple leaves from 10% to 20% of the pig’s daily diet. Then, in another 10 days, increase the amount of fallen apple leaves to 60% of the pig’s diet, and maintain this amount.