The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1896-12-02
Cooking Feed for Hogs,

John Blair, Redwood, o., asks if it
"pays to steam or cook corn for hogs TO
fatten, or for stock hogs you are win
tering, or for mich cows as slop? Is
it enough better TO pay for expense OF
a cooker, work and fuel?"
Many would answer these questions
in the affirmative, but from our eXpe.
rience we cannot advise Mr.. Blair to go
to the expense of trial, We, have,
however, found that we can heat slop
by the barrel at time, when we are
wintering lot of fall pigs. Young pigs
cannot thrive in cold weather unless
they have warm, dry quarters and
good variety of feed, We can secure a
better variety with cooker or steamer,
as we can boil potatoes, turnips, man.
gel wurtzels, add bran, mddlings, and
oil meal, and make warm mess which
we have found adds TO comfort and
thrift, more than TO feed cold slop and
dry corn.
Young things need more coddling
and care to keep up warmth and growth
than do more mature animals. We
never found any profit in cooking feed
or making warm slop for fattening hogs
or brood sows. But cooked, warm slop,
when feeding on dry corn, seems to
suit fall pigs in winter. Feeding
steamed corn to pigs and sows is dis
appointment because they eat it SO
rapidly that the benefit from thorough
mastication is lost, and the steamed
feed is not as we'll digested as that
eaten raw, and which is eaten slowly.
Professor Henry of Wisconsin sta
ton has, perhaps, made the most thor
ough experiments in pig feeding of any
man in America. In experiments of
1856 on four lots of hogs, two lots fed
cooked feed showed a cost of 81 cents
ana 3.4 cents per pound of pork for the
food, allowing nothing for cost of cook
ing. The two lots fed uncooked feed
showed cost of 81 cents and cents
per pound of pork. The feed in each
case was corn and shorts. Corn val
ued at 35 cents bushel, shorts at S14
per ton.
In Wisconsin report of 1898 the re-
suits of feeding corn and shorts cooked
and uncooked, "show an average loss
by cooking the food of about fifty cents
for each 100 pounds of pork made, be-
sides the labor of preparing the food"
Experiments with cooked and uncooked
iSCd az NullOub btdllOub cuOW.
AT Ontario agricultural college cooked
peas 0wo trials) were to uncooked peas
as $40 TO 100. At Michigan agricul-
tural college scalded corn and oatmeal
was to wet meal as 101.7 to 100. At
Kansas agricultural college cooked
shelled corn was to uncooked corn as
"a to 100. AT Iowa agricultural col
lege cooked shelled corn (two trials)
was to uncooked as 1928 to 100. Cooked |
corn meal (two trials) was TO uncooked |
as 1913 to 100 AT Maine agricultural
college cooked corn meal (nine trials)
was to uncooked as S2.9 to 100.
In all these trials except that at |
Michigan agricultural college, there was
loss FROM cooked feed compared with |
dry uncOoked feed. In the Michigan |
test the feed was wet in both cases, and |
the wet feed was not so masticated as
to mix in saliva as would have been
done had the feed been dry. So the
Michigan test is rather one between
scalded meal and wet meal.
Prof. Henry remarks that "hogs fed
on dry food consume it much more
slowly than when fed wet. 1t required
over forty minutes for hogs fed on diy
barley meal to consume ration, while
on cooked meal they ate it up in ten
minutes. On corn meal the time was
as twenty TO nine minutes"
Digestion experiments show that
cooking decreases the digestibility of
matter. AS slop for
mich cows we have no data, personal
or otherwise. But on general principles
we would say the advantage in steam
ing feed for COWS would come from Civ
ing it to them in form to be attractive
and add to their comfort in very cold
weather, and get them to take more
water than if left to dry feed and ice
water.--L. n. Bonham in the Ohio
Farmer.