Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-10-18

BE sure the animals have just as muchas
they can eat at a time. Feed often. VARY their
diet; giving sometimes raw and sometimes
cooked food. For hogs, ashes and salt mixed
are excellent; or better still, aIiberal quantity
of soap occasionally. If they begin to eat
gravel remove them to another pen. They
viii take no flesh as long as they eat gravel.
Fatten rapidly. There IS more profit in
making spring pig weigh heavily than
any other way. Keep them gentle. Kill
all dogs that run after them. One or two
doggings are equiyaleRtsto. week or two
starving. Should they begin to die with
cholera shut them off from water. We do
not know that this is remedy, but it most
always arrests the rayages of the disease.
XIII before the severe weather of winter.
Hogs never thrive after cold SHOWS and rain
set in, especially if the pens are muddy.
Better and sweeter bacon is made by kill
ing in moderate weather. Don't forget to
slaughter at place where the offal and
blood viii benefit the land.
Mr.. George Geddes. in the New York
Tribune, whose experience is large, laws
down this general rule for fattening: q Be
gin to feed within three days Of birth, and
continue until maturity is reached, and then
slaughter-being all the time governed by
the rule that every day some gain should be
made, and that, too, the greatest that the
food consumed can be made 10 produce.
This Is putting in a few words the lesson OF
my life's experience and investigation" He
also gives the following Interesting history
FOf the fattening of a steer up TO the age of
over four years. The conclusions that he
reaches are interesting and valuable: ID
The weight Of this steer at birth was I'M
commonly great-134 pounds; at 80 days
old he weighed 3S5 pounds, having gained
251 pounds, which was at the rate of
? 79-100 pounds per day, or at the rate of
74S per cent. per anum. During this
time he had the milk of his mother, and
from ten days old quart of meal and oats
per day-the mother having all the meal
she would eat fcorn meal, I suppose). At
six months old he weighed 60 pounds,
having gained 2S5 pounds-at the rate of
g 6-100 pounds per day--and at the rate of
296 per cent. per annum, the food being
gradually increased to two quarts Of meal
per day. He gained only "a pounds more
the second three months than he did the
first, though his meal had been increased
100 per cent. and he probably did not pay
as well for the food consumed as for the
first 80 days. He was next weighed at one
year old, and went at 1895 pounds,
having gained in weight i'm six months
366 pounds-at the rate of 2 03-100 pounds
per day, and at the rate of 10S per cent per
cent. per annum. AT the age of Is months
he weighed 1854 pounds, having gained 31S
pOunds-at the rate Of T0-1O0 pounds per
day, which was 90 per cent. per annum.
His food had become four quarts of meal
and oats per day and two quarts of roots,
beside hay, etc. At two years of age he
weighed ,616 pounds, having gained in six
months only 262 pounds, or / 45-1O0
pounds per day-equal to SO per cent. per
annum. At % wears old he weighed 1880
pounds, having gained only PA pounds in
six months, it being l 1870 pounds per
day, or 26 per cent. per annum; the food
having been increased to eight quarts of
meal, with roots and good hay or grass. At
three years old he weighed 2,070 pounds
having gained in the six months 240 pounds.
which is / 33-100 pounds per day, and 26
per cent. per annum. At 80 years he
weighed 2,270 pounds, gaining 200 pounds
at the rate of 11-100 pounds per day,
or 10 per cent. per annm. At four years
old he weighed 1890, aud finally at the age
of four years and four months, he weighed
2,530 pounds, having gained in 10 months
260 Ga little more than he gained in the first
80 days Of his life), at the rate of $1,000
pounds per day, or Is per cent. per annum.
1t may be somewhat tedious to go care
fully over these figures, but their full exam
nation viii be profitable. This steer was
considered as of uncommon merit, and Mr..
c. s. Marvin of Oxford depot, Orange
county, Ny, who raised him, received
much credit for him, and certainly is enti-
tied to our thanks for having given us the
live weight of this steer with sach care.
wish to call attention to some of the i'm
portant points brought out by these fig
ures. - -.--..--. /
1. The steer paid best, for the food he
consumed, duEng the first 80 days of his
life that be ever did, and that the next 80 |
days he did far better for the food consum-
ed, than he ever did afterward, gaining !
more absolute weight per day during the |
second three months of his life e 5000 |
lbs.) than during any other part of it. And |
he gained more per day the first 90 days |
than at any other time in his life, except |
the second period of 20 days. These gains |
being on so small gross weight of the ami |
NAL give the large per eentageS per annum |
that have been stated.
2. At one year old the steer weighed a |
little over 1000 lbs, while it took him two |
more years to get up to the weight of 2,070 |
lbs. He had at one year weight of l ,056 /
TBS, and he was only able to about double |
this in two years. Every day his power to \
consume food increased, while his ability |
to increase weight, not only decreased, pro-
pOrtionably, but absolutely. When he was
a calf of three months he could, and did, |
gain 8 16-100 lbs. in day, while at two |
years old he did not gain 50-100 TBS. per !
day, and finally, for the last ten months of |
his life he could not make a gain of a pound |
a day. The rule of constant falling off in |
absolute gain per day was quite uniform in
the life of this animal. From % years Of |
age to years he gained a little more per |
day than he did for the preceding six
months, but after that he fell of radidly in
his rate of gain per dao. s&
3. Judging from the various weights
given of this steer, he was ripe and fit for
the shambles at Is months old, and would
then have been extra good beef: at three
years and six months old he was at his
acme of quality; he then weighed 2,27O
pounds. The next six months he only
gained 80 pounds, and have no doubt that
the quality of his beef was not as good as it
was at three years old, and the owner did
wise thing in killing him before he began to
actually decrease in weight.
FOR THE HOUSEWIFE.