Are pigs not suppose to eat everything?

Snuffling through the cereal

Has it got bits in?

Are you eating it?

No it really is bad

Our pigs are driving us mad at the moment, well for about a fortnight now since they started to have a new batch of mixed cereals. They just wont eat it.





Is it only our pigs that are fussy? Out of all of them there are three who will eat it no problem but the rest just turn there snouts up. Gorgon and the girls have no problem with it or the sheep but the chickens and ducks don't think much of it either. So what is different about it? It can't be that inedible if some will eat it.

It must be the taste. This is new mixed grain cereal from this year, a mixture of wheat, oats,barley and peas, a lot more peas than last year so it can only be the taste of the peas that is putting them off.
When the cereal is changed the old lot is milled with the new lot half and half so there is a gradual change, the same done this time. We have a lot of this unpalatable cereal too much for Gorgon to get through in his lifetime alone so we can't just throw it away.

So for the past fortnight things have been added to try and make the taste better starting with salt, which usually gets a pig eating again - didn't work, sugar didn't work, cooked rice with vegetable stock cubes the pigs just pushed the cereal around picking out the rice. Next we blended the rice until it was a gruel like consistency and no visible rice grains - worked for a few days but not the normal clearing of troughs as soon as it put down. Now we are back to not eating so we have moved on to no rice and chicken stock cubes, this is all getting a bit tiring (and expensive). Gorgon thinks its great as he is getting all the non eaten collected up cereal.

Just as the semi retired chickens are starting to lay again they will probably stop,although as they are free range once again they can be seen on top of the cereal bags self serving probably picking out all the nice bits and spitting out the peas. They best not go and visit the pigs or they might not come back. I'm sure chicken would be tastier than the cereal at the moment.