With the high price of corn and soybean meal, some pork producers are wondering if it would be profitable to use an alternative feed source.  South Dakota State Swine Specialist, Bob Thaler has conducted some research on that premise.  He shared his findings during the recent Swine Day held at Brookings.  Thaler says at one time, South Dakota had the opportunity to use several different alternative feed sources for hog feed.  For his research project, Thaler and others focused on feeding hybrid rye to pigs.  He says he and SDSU students studied various aspects of the pig after being fed the hybrid rye at different amounts.  Thaler says Pipestone Farms assisted with the research project by providing the hogs used for the study.  The SDSU swine specialist says they had 25 hogs per pen, and the findings were slightly lower that had they used an all-corn feed ration.  Thaler says there were no detected differences with taste with the pork meat, and only slight differences in marbling and juiciness with the pigs that were fed hybrid rye instead of corn.