The Hickman courier. [volume] (Hickman, Ky.) 1859-current, 1873-01-18
Agricultural.
fEEDIYG AND MANA CEMENT OF
STOCK.

STOCK.
Hogs designed for slaughter ought
not to be longer than to the age of ten
to twelve months-there is no profit in
keeping pigs of any considerable size
through the winter. Where but small
number are handled, say from ten to
twenty, they may be proitably disposed
of at younger age, say eight to ten
months. We were shown a half-dozen
pigs the other day at Judge Avery's that
would weigh two hundred and forty
pounds at the age of seven months.
These pigs have never been out of the
pen have been fed corn and swill from
the house, with salt twice week, and
occasionally ashes. Judge Avery never
keeps his pigs longer than to the age of
nine months, and makes them everage
from two hundred and seventy-five to
three hundred pounds net, and some
times even larger weights.
This management requires that pigs
should be narrowed as early as the latter
part of February or the first of March,
as it is not profitable to make pork in
cold weather When hogs are kept in
large numbers and cannot be prepared
for market at quite so young an age,
the pigs may be narrowed late in the
fall. When they are allowed to run out
the small pigs viii be less troublesome
in the winter than at any other period.
We have advocated feeding cattle in
In the fields rather than in the barn
yard in the mud, and it is inconvenient
feeding corn fodder to n herd of cattle
of any size In the barn-yard at all. We
therefore advised feeding In pasture
lots, and when dry, or the ground is
frozen, to feed In the meadows. Every
farmer knows that when the ground IS
soft, the tramping of meadows with cat
tie is is injurious. But when the meadows
are getting old and the grass light, it viii
do good, even when the ground is lit
tie soft and an old blue grass pasture
- hardly ever too soft to feed on OF
course it viii be understood that we are
speaking of outdoor feeding during the
day assuming that as most people have
at night, they will be fed there night
and morning, and little fodder will be
put out for them to pick at through the
day.
Many people are in the habit of
throwing their corn in the shock over
the fence, and leaving it there in large
lunches just where the manure is not
wanted, and where fodder is not eaten
half as well as when scattered about
over the field. Others haul all their
fodder and stack it up near cattIe-yard
sometimes away from the barn--in
which they have also their straw stack,
and thus through the winter are kept
on straw and fodder alone their cattle
and sheep.
On this management stock never does
well-by spring they are very poor. The
manure is also poor, and yet from the
large bulk piled up of corn-stalks and
straw, it requires a great deal of work
to get it out Indeed we frequently see
this straw manure neglected and left IN
this condition TO. years and no use made
bedding in the barn. Here and for
this purpose it viii pay-pay in the
saving of liquid manure-a most i'm
portant consideration. for these liGuids
are valuable as plant food, and in de-
composing and rendering available for
the same purpose the straw itself, and
all the other ingredients of the manure
heap.
We would therefore feed little hay
with grain in the barn, and bed literally
with straw, thus adding to the comfort
rs well as to the thrift of the stock
turn out for water and exercise every
day, and, unless the weather is too
severe, leave them out to eat rough
food till evening.
If it is not convenient to grind the
corn (Which is always recommended
when mill is near) it may be shelled,
especially for calves, who viii eat it
readily and do well on it. But the
best food for calves, is a mixture of
ground oats, corn and bran. Farmers
should always aim to have all their
wheat ground and sell the flour, so as
to have the bran and shorts.
The feeding should begin before the
grass is all gone-the farmer bearing in
mind that the. object is not merely
to "keep his stock over" as it is
termed, but to put them ahead-keep
them going, as well in summer as in
winter. The grain added for this pur-
pose viii not increase the expense more
than twenty-five to forty per cent,
while it viii make the entire winter
keeping yield handsome profit, instead
of being, as is often the case under the
pinchincr system. a dead loss.