The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1878-02-01

growth, il would appear that fed alone
IL was not worth quite 1-2 cents per
quart mt the present low price of pork.
One point | desire 10 call attention
TO, and that l. The increasing amount OF
food required to make pound of
growth as age advanced. ! have
always noticed the same fact in feeding,
that Young beef animals make cheaper
meat than older ones. Do not keep
until eighteen months old for cheap
pork. Nine months for profit is
enough. and better fattcn for the mar
kct at six months, or earlier.
These pigs grew as fast and in MS
good and thrifty form as those fed on
corn meal, not Keeping quite as fat. All
three of the lot of pigs were of one
type, showing plainly common ORR
gin; cross of a Sufiolk-boar with
Chester White SOW "a most excellent
cross.
| will not weary by giving each
weighing, pounds to make pound of
growth and cost per pound at each
period, as find it recorded on my
books, but will give the result at, or up
to, the last period of weighing, and at
the commencement of fattening, for
those fed on middlings grew coarser,
with larger stomachs, than those fed on
meal-those fed on meal keeping fat all
through the period of feeding. Thus,
the last month those led on middlmgs
had to be fattened of OF meal:
Lot on middlings for 1856 DAYS,
gained POI pounds. Consumed 1924
pounds.
Lot on meal for 1856 days, gained
1923 pounds Consumed 1880 pounds.
Lot l., pounds of feed to make a
pound of growth, 4. |.
Lot 3, pounds of feed to make a
pound of growth. 4.
Thus n bushel of corn for the period
averaged to make IA pounds of growth.
When the pigs were young, bnshel
made II pounds of growth.
will state that the experiment suf-
icrs somewhat from the fact that pig
out of each lot got injured, the lot fed
OH middlings suffered most. The in
jured pig fell rs pounds behind his
mate in the lot fed on middlings, and
the injured pig of the meal fed lot los
ing IS pounds beside his mate. Yet
the sound one of the meal fed lot was
So pounds heavier than the sound one
of the lot fed on middlings. The
weight OF the two lots stood thus:
AIiddlings, 275 pounds.
Meal, 1856 pounds.
These figures have some interest to
me. Why did lot 3 consume So per
cent. more food than lot /? And why
did not they gain more than SO per cent.
more tl.an lot (instead of less than SIS
per cent more) as is usually the case2
In feeding my cattle l find that the per
cent. of growth increases much faster
than the per cent of added food, when
they are fed right.
Did the meal fed pigs have TO eat an
excess of carbonaccous meal in order
to obtain the requisite amount of mus
cle-forming material, and the excess
pass off as waste? and would the addi-
ton Of middlings or skim milk or any
heterogeneous matter have enabled the
pigs TO utilize this waste? Or on the
other hand could the middlings fed
pigs, eating about two-thirds as much
as the meal fed pigs, have been induced
by adding meal to eat as much rs the
meal fed pigs? if so, would they have
gained in proportion to food eaten?
We hope To investigate more extern
sively this season.
Ihe next month lot | was led on
meal TO fit them for the butcher.
Lot consumed 342 pounds meal,
gained SO pounds, or 3 1-2 pounds meal
made pound of growth, or IL pounds
to bushcl of corn.
Lot 8 consumed $50 pounds of meal,
and gained 20 pounds, or 3.s pounds to
one of growth.
Thus the pigs fitted for the butcher
show that lot has been made n little
the cheaper, or really no difference,
both lots costing nearly cents per
pound, not quite 40 of increase in
growth, while they could have been
sold for j l-2 cents. Lot now put OH
meal consume more than lot 3. Could
we have been allowed to mix the food
we doubt not that we should have
cheaper pork.
Lot in dressing -hrank - per cent
lot 3 shrank Is per cent.
Are our hogs the cheapest manufac-
turcrs of manure for New England?
ask the reader not to think of this
experiment as an attempt to make
cheap pork. IL can be made with well
bred pigs and food skillfully mixed, or
varied for the wants of the animal, for
4 cents per pound live weight he
lieve, perhaps less, using cross of a
small boar upon some of our larger
sows-small breeds to large ones.
J.W. SANBoRN.
Hanover, Dec. q, 1877.