I always gave them sweet corn oats and barley with molasses and alfalfa. I let my pigs eat acorns but not before butchering. They say not to feed them the night before but that is too stressful for the pigs so I fed them light and with plenty water in the food. Before butchering I would give them a qt. of ale, they wouldn't know what happened. I also kept them from seeing the others being butchered,it was less stressful, for all involved.

If it's so stressful, why butcher them ?

I think there are a lot of myths about the effect of diet and stress on meat flavor. I've never seen a convincing study that shows there is any real effect if the animal is eating a normal diet of fairly bland foods.

There are very few ways to kill an animal that don't cause some stress because killing necessarily requires a departure from their normal routine (unless you do a brain shot at close range with a gun, in which case you've probably stressed out their penmates).

Just to be safe, I'd recommend a good diet of whole grains a couple of weeks before the big date, plenty of clean water, and kill them away from the penmates.

I wouldn't butcher them at all! I love pigs...sorry,I'm a vegetarian!!

We get a lot of wild pigs which have been eating guavas. Yum! It is almost worth while to let them dig up the garden a bit so we can trap them. We've just started avocado season now, though, so the pigs won't be as sweet. Fatter, but not as sweet. We will probably start smoking the meat or making sausage since it won't be as sweet.

I've heard that if pigs have been eating acorn mast before slaughter, then the fat won't congeal properly and sort of be a dark oil. Not having any acorns to feed the pigs - which are wild and feed themselves anyway, I can't personally test this theory.

Some folks prefer sow meat to boar meat, although I'm not sure if there's a difference.