Interactive lesson

Scraps for animals, step by step

Interactive lesson: which garden and kitchen leftovers each animal may have, what is poisonous, what the law forbids and how to feed leftovers without risk.

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The whole lesson as text

1. The law and swine fever

The old rule "nothing goes to waste" still holds, but with two new things: African swine fever and the law.

Swine fever travels in food — One sandwich thrown into a pig pen or into the woods can infect a whole district. Don't throw food into the countryside and don't feed wild boar or feral pigs.
Swill with meat: never — Meat, cured meat, fish, bones and cooked food containing meat never go to pigs or poultry.
Illegal in the UK and Ireland — The animal by-products rules (EU Regulation 1069/2009, kept in UK law) ban feeding catering waste to farmed animals, including pet pigs and a few hens in the garden.
Check and report — In the US and Canada the rules differ: check with your state veterinarian or the CFIA. Report any suspicion of swine fever to a vet straight away; reporting is required by law.

Why: African swine fever has no cure and no vaccine, and the virus survives for months in raw, cured and frozen meat. In the UK and Ireland it is illegal to feed kitchen waste to farmed animals; in the US and Canada the rules differ by state and province.

In the UK and Ireland kitchen waste is illegal even with no meat in it, because no one can guarantee it never touched meat.
Never anything of animal origin for ruminants (goats, sheep, cows).

2. Garden or kitchen

The difference is simple: where the leftover came from.

From the garden and field — Cabbage and chard leaves, weeds, undersized vegetables and windfalls have never been in the kitchen. That is feed for animals.
Prepare it outside — Clean the vegetables in the garden or on the porch and put the leaves and peel into a separate "animals" bucket before they come into the kitchen.
Kitchen goes to compost — Kitchen plant waste goes to the compost or a wormery, not to the animals. The hens later scratch through the compost and find worms.
Four questions — Has it been sprayed (follow the harvest interval)? Was it picked by a road? Are there poisonous plants in the weeds? Has it wilted on a heap? Feed it fresh or fully dried.

Why: Leftovers from the garden and field have never been in the kitchen, and that is feed for animals. Anything that has been on a plate, in a pan or on a board where meat has been goes to the compost or the bin.

Keep two bins: a green "animals" bucket on the porch and a compost caddy in the kitchen.
Give pigs only what is grown or picked for them: pumpkins, fodder beet, maize, windfalls.