Farm scraping by to feed 4,000 pigs without strip leftovers

Click here for updates on this story

    Las Vegas (KVVU) — A Las Vegas farm relied on strip casinos as its main food source for 4,000 pigs. Now it’s getting creative to keep them full.

“Pigs are a lot like us so they love sweets, candies, ice cream,” Las Vegas Livestock co-owner Hank Combs said. “They like meat and potatoes. They’re not a big fan of salads and produce, but they will eat it.

On a normal day, the farm would get 20 tons of food from casinos and restaurants across the valley. Once the strip shut down and casinos closed, their food source was cut off.

“You know we’re just one of the many stories out there in the world and I’m just trying to survive, keep the pigs fed, keep the employees employed,” Combs said.

Months before the coronavirus outbreak, Combs and his company developed and designed a new system. The first of its kind, it can un-package anything, allowing them to use the food inside sauce packets and milk jugs.

The farm blends the food then boils it. Combs said it’s helping them make the most out of what they have.

“We get some product from other communities,” he said. “We have products that come in from Denver and Idaho, California because they see the value in what we do here, in de-packaging the product and keeping it out of the landfill.”

Combs said they are reaching out to other valley restaurants, grocery stores and warehouses. They normally fed five to seven times a day.

The farm is still selling pigs , but they won’t buy anymore until they can find the food for them.

“We really don’t know when it’s going to stop. It could go on for another four or five weeks, six weeks,” Combs said it all depends on when Las Vegas bounces back and the Strip reopens.

By mid-April, Combs estimates he’ll only have 2,000 pigs, half the amount he normally has.

“The question is can you recover right?” Combs said. “Are you going to be able to have the numbers, the cash to buy the pigs, be able to sustain it? All of that’s unanswered questions.”

Please note: This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.