The Wichita city eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1872-1883, 1876-12-28
Fsttsning Spring Pigs.

Pigs well fed should gain from one TO
one and half pounds day, or weiSh
from two hundred and fifty to four
hundred pounds when from eight TO
nine months .old, making them. the
cheapest pork..the farmer can make.
MANY folks think it costs the most TO
make pig pork; but little considera-
ton will show that it cannot cost as
much TO make a hog weigh from three
hundred to five hundred pounds Iii
some eight months, as it will to bring
it up to that weight in eight months,
as it must take a good deal of feed to
supply life during the longer period,
and for which there is no return. This
expense is made still larger by having
TO support life during the long cold
winter. This is made plain by Ovid
ing the feed of such pig into three
parts, one to support life, and two for
growth and fattening.
Now it cannot be far out of the way
to allow an average of one and a half
pounds day gain when. fed to the
best advantage, making some four
hundred pounds in nine months, while
feeding two parts, or two-thlrds OF
this mount on an average makes only
three fourths of q pound of gain, and
takes double the time TO make the
same weight, so that the part and por-
ton to support life has to be fed
double the time or to double the
amount, 10 the wintered hog that it is
to the pig.
If the average cost of feeding The pig
is six cents day, eight months and
ten days viii cost fifteen dollars. and
it may then weigh say three hundred
pounds net, whild the old hog at two
thirds cost, or four cents day, must
take five hundred days, at a cost of
twenty dollars, to gain the same
weight. When it is considered that a
large portion of the hogs in the coun-
try are kept until some eighteen or
twenty months old, or from five to SIX
hundred days, to make three hundred
pounds net, the great advantage of the
usual practice becomes very plain.
True there may be something saved
or gained BY pssturing the wintered
hog, but is not this balanced by the
greater cost of keeping in the winter?
And then, as the hog is not strictly a
grazing animal, the pasture may pay
as well or better for other stock. Pigs
do better when fed a little less than
they can eat, than when there is more
or less left in the trough.
The best feed is the mixture of skim
milk, slops, etc, from the house, well
thickened with some kind of proven
der. Corn, peas, barley, buckwheat
and oats are all good. But pigs do
best on mixture of some of these
grains. This makes provender that
Will go well with the swills, and stay
SO. Corn meal, and to large extent,
pea meal, settles to the bottom as soon
as it is mixed. IL either is mixed
with oats before grinding, it makes
provender that answers admirably.
Barley answers very well, but does
better with portion of oats mixed in
before grinding, and buckwheat and
oats do very well mixed together, Or
with some other grain, but neither of
them ought to be fed alone.
Nor should any grain be fed to such
pigs unless ground. If alone any kind |
of grain is better ground; but when
the meal is mixed with swill so as TO |
more thoroughly fill up and distend
the stomach, it is more thoroughly di-
gested than is usually the case when
fed in any other way. 1t is also best |
to vary the fed, and mix in few
boiled potatoes or other vegetables for
a change, giving but little at first, but
more as the pigs get older.-Stock
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