Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1886-08-05
SWINE IN SUMNER,


| A System of Feeding Which VIII As
suredly GIVE Fair Results.
One of our subscribers asks what plan
| of feeding in the summer has been
found best for swine to keep them gain
ing SO they can be fattened rapidly
when colder weather comes. Many
farmers seem to consider the summer
season as a time when they can easily
carry the swine along on little food.
Some of them have an idea that the pig
should be tided over the summer on a
little pasture, and prepared to be fat
tened after the cold fall weather sets in.
Grass promotes the health of pigs, and
proper amount of it is highly bene-
fetal; but profitable feeding requires
that pigs should make their most rapid
gain in warm weather. A hundred
pounds can be put on pigs in summer
as cheaply fifty or sixty-five pounds in
cold weather. We believe this statement
will be Endorsed by all feeders who have
tested the warm and the cold seasons for
feeding under ordinary circumstances.
We admit that the swine houses may be
built so as to maintain Il mild temporal
ture in winter, and then there would not
be SO great a difference us we have noted.
But those who provide for a summer
temperature in winter are thorough be-
levers in full feeding at all seasons of
the year, and need no .admonition as to
the economy of full feeding in summer.
What is the appropriate grain food
for pigs in summer? The answer to this
question must depend upon the age and
condition of the pigs. Pigs from two
to six months old must have such food
as will produce growth of muscle and
bone, not fat. Indian corn for such pigs
is, therefore, to be avoided, except IN
very small quantity. Corn is the most
fattening food. the food to fill up the
large, lank, muscular frame, to lay on
clear, solid pork. But the young pig
has all this framework to grow,
and should have food best adapted to
that end. A clover pasture is good
beginning, and this should be supple
mented with heterogeneous and phos-
phatc food, such as oats, peas, wheat,
middlings, linseed meal or cotton-seed
meal; or, best of all, several of these
mixed together. Linseed meal. which
can be had at twenty to twenty-five dol
lars per ton in many parts of the coun-
try, is perhaps the best extra food for
young pigs in summer, because of its
easy digestibility, soothing effect upon
the digestive organs, and its peculiar
adaptation to the growth of muscle and
bone. Cotton-seed meal has much
more oil, more heterogeneous matter, and
is rich in phosphates, but is not so east
ly digested as lnseed meal, and is con-
stipating, while linseed meal is slightly
laxative. Wheat middlings, which is
purchasable in the West, usually at
six to nine dollars per ton, is also well
adapted to the growth of frame and
muscle in pigs, and will produce this
growth at a low rate of cost. Perhaps
the best combination of food would be
one hundred pounds of 1inseed meal,
two hundred pounds of wheat middlings
and one hundred pounds of corn meal,
mixed together. This would give
mixture of qualities leaving nothing to
be desired. The writer has used this COM
binat on with very great satisfaction. He
has had lots of tifty-pound pigs gain
nine pounds each per week, steadily, for
ten weeks in succession. At the same
tine another lot equally thrifty, on pas
ture alone, gained three pounds each
per week The extra feed cost twelve
cents per week for each pig, while the
extra gain was six pounds per week, or
two cents per pound. This same extra
feed given in cold weather would not
have produced half the gain. This
combination of food will keep the pigs
in pr me health in the hot season. hav-
ing no tendency to produce feverish
state of the system. Peas, oats or corn,
ground together in equal proportions,
also make an excellent combination for
summer pig food. We doubt if hog
cholera would ever appear in pigs thus
reared. This disease is of very rare oc-
currence in the Eastern States, and the
cases there found are mostly propagated
by contact with Western hogs. Western
feeders would do well to provide a
greater variety of food for their pigs:
Peas and oats grow as naturally and
as profitably in the West as corn. Use
them all in the growth of pigs, and dis
ease will be much less troublesome.-
National Lire Stock Journal.