The Kimball graphic. (Kimball, Brule County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1905, 1890-08-22
FOR THE FARMERS
Oats Make an Excellent Feed for
All Kinds Of Stock.
How TO Push the Spring Pig-Milch
Cows Demand an Unusual
Amount of Feed.

N .IIn.. -
For all classes of stock oats make an
excellent feed. For hogs it is better to
feed tho grain alone and still better if
they Ear be ground before feeding.
During growth, oats is one of tho very
best materials that can be used to secure
a good development of bone and muscle,
and with hogs this is quite an item. Fol
work teams, especially when busy at
work during the summer, oats make a
better feed b a corn, writes a con-
tractor to the Nebraska Farmer. Dur
ing the winter corn can be used, us it is
more heating, but during the summer
when strength is desired, oats should
be used partially if not wholly.
Sheep and stock cattle that are being
wintered over for growth can DO kept in
a good condition on unthreshed oats
and they are a cheap feed usually as
they supply with grain and r%oughness.
With horses especially there is a con-
siderable waste in feeding in the straw
unless it is first run through a cutting
box. Stock soon learn to eat the heads
and leave the straw and this is a waste.
If threshed the straw should be
stacked up carefully, as stock prefer
oat to wheat straw. Then by using a
cutting box and running both the clover
hay and oat straw through it and adding
a small quantity Of bran, a good oatfon
can be made up that will be cheap and
nutritious.
While oats are a reasonably sure crop
generally, yet this year theyare largely
a failure in many localities, and while
generally they cannot be considered a
profitable crop to raise for market, yet
the prospect is that this year the grain
will sell at good prices. They can al
ways be used to n good advantage for
feed, and whether fed in tho straw or
threshed they should be saved in as good
a condition as .ncssible. And in feeding
out care should be taken to use to the
best advantage. With low prices for
both stock and products it is quite an
item to manage SO as to realize all the
benefit possible, and one way of doing
this is to avoid waste.
Generally a variety of food will give
better result than any single material.
No one plant, either oats, corn, wheat,
rye or barley, contains all the elements
of nutrition in h right proportion to
secure the best gain at the lowest cost,
n it is better to use a variety. AND
one of the best advantages in cutting
tho rough feed like corn fodder. hay,
oats and straw and grinding the grain
is that a better opportunity of securing
a good combination is afforded. And if
the threshed oats are ground and the
straw is cut or if the threshed oats are
cut before being fed, and bran, oil
meal, corr meal or other material is
mixed with them a more perfect return
can be secured. They make, however,
q good feed alone, but are greatly i'm
proved by putting in a condition to be
mixed with other material.
Push the Growth.
Now is the time to make the spring
pigs grow. If You expect to make
money in raising hogs you must COM
mence with the pig. A good hog is
neve made from a poor pig, only at a
loss to tho owner. 1t is now about
weaving time with many filters, and
this must not be made q critical period
in the pigs life, says the Western
Stockman and C%ultivator. Have your
feed troughs for the pigs in a separate
place from the hogs or sows, and stuff
these little fellows with all the good,
sweet swill they will hold. Make OF
bran, ground grain and milk, dish water,
all refuse you can accumulate from the
kitchen, fill up with water what you
lack in other ingredients. Keep two or
three barrels for this use, ifyour bunch
of pigs demand it. We do not favor
souring swill and always manage to
feed out clean the day after it is made.
Fine ground rye chop Is excellent
when mixed with other ground
feed, especially wheat, bran and shorts,
or ground oats or corn meal. Every
owner of pigs who would make the bus.
mess q success, must use some judg-
ment in preparing feed for them, and
he must be well supplied with feed OF
sell out to some man who is. No man
can raise hogs without plenty of grain.
This is the first thing to procure. Tame
grasses with plenty of good water will
grow pigs in a kind OF a way, but 1t is
not the way that a thorough hog hardly
admires. AS a helper to the grain ano
swill feed, tame grasses, especially
clover, is valuable, as all experienced
hog raisers know. A good substitute is
had by growing sweet corn and cutting
it for the pigs any time after it is knee