Feeding practices adopted by small holding Pig farmers in Tamil Nadu

Feeding of animals in a proper manner has a direct impact on the growth rate, production capacity and health status of animals. The dietary needs of an animal consist of nutrients which are the components present in the feed for easy digestion and utilization. The study was taken up to assess the various feeding practices followed by 30 pig farmers of Tamil Nadu. It was found that about 57 per cent of farmers used hotel waste and banana leaf to the pigs reared for fattening purpose, while 30 per cent of the farmers used concentrate feed for breeding pigs with locally available grains. Only 3 per cent of farmers used commercially available swine mash for feeding the animals. Farmers fed pigs with 5–6 kg of hotel waste per day and also 4 to 5 kg of banana leaf greens at evening time. About 10 per cent of the farmers used mixed feeding i.e. concentrate feed, hotel waste or greens. It was concluded that most of farmers were not aware of scientific rearing and specific feeding practices, this leads to piglet mortality, low production performance and disease occurrence.