The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1896-07-25
FARMER AND PLANTER.
ABOUT PIGS.
Waldo +. Brown Gives Some Pointers
that win Interest Farmers

tnot Will interest FormeTB
Since pigs, well fattened, that will
weigh about 200 pounds, command the
highest price in the market, and 1t has
been proved In thousands of cases that
this weight can be attained at six
months old, it is profitable question
to study how this can be done. A
majority of farmers, writes Waldo F.
Brown in the Ohio Farmer, have never
raised a six-months old pig that
would weigh this and dc not be-
.ieve that It can be done; but
there is no going behind the fact that
many farmers are doing this, and
some even better, and the memoran-
dunn OF narrowing, which every farm
err ought to keep, and the use Of scales
when they are sold. viii enable one to
know just what he is doing. 1t is easy
to exceed this weight If dairy is kept
and only cream and butter sold and
the milk fed to they pigs, but not so
easy without milk; but it can be done,
/ think. recently visited dairyman
who millxs 80 cows, using a separator
and feeding the milk warm. and he
told me that he had not failed in five
years, on a single lot to make a
weight of 200 pounds or more at six
months old. A pound day from
birth to market is considered good
and is certainly above the average,
but he did better. He sold lot of 43
pigs in the middle of February last
that were 225 days old and averaged
270 pounds each, and this was evil
dence of good care, as winter is notthe
best fattening season. But this man
has covered barnyard, into which
both cows and pigs were turned, and
the cold weather did not hinder their
growth, He told me that large part
of the net profit of his dairy came
from the pigs, for often, when butter
was low and grain high, the margin
on the butter was small. Every farm
er can not run dairy, and how to
make pig pork without milk is what
I wish to tell A little milk is al
most Indispensable for ten or twenty
days at weaving time, but every
farmers keeps cows and enough milk
can be spared to give the pigs start.
To grow pigs fit for market at six
months old one must have good stock.
The pigs should be from mature
mothers and young sires. Mature
mothers will save a larger percentage
of their pigs, will have larger and
stronger pigs and will give more
milk. The use of young sires gives
tendency to early maturity in the
offspring. The pigs must be taught
to eat young, so that there will be no
stopping of growth when they are
taken from the sows. They can be
taught to eat at four or five weeks
old, and we usually wean them at
about eight weeks old. The pigs
must be fed until about four months
old on food with high albuminoid
ratio, and the food should be bulky
should be such as to develop bone and
muscle and vital and digestive organs.
Bran should form the base of the
ration; 1t is not palatable enough
alone, but by the addition of oil meal,
wheat middlings and salt. we can
make it quite palatable. / would mix
with half bushel of bran six quarts
of middlings and two quarts of oil
meal. When they are to be had, a few
quarts of potatoes boiled and mashed,
and while hot stirred into the slop
will greatly help its palatabili-
ty. What potatoes can be cooked
in kettle on the stove while
the family are at breakfast will flavor
the slop for score of pigs. 1 believe
that fed in this way, potatoes are often
worth 25 cents a bushel for feeding,
and the unmerchantab ones are just
as good as any. Do not dilute the
slop, but feed it rich and as thick as it
will run, and then give yonr pigs fresh
water in a separate trough. Never
feed more than they will eat clean;
| pigs never do their best with soiled
corn or sour, dirty slop by them.
would avoid sour swill by emptying
the barrel every day in hot weather.
| Give a little corn the first four
months, and for the last two
months let them have all the corn
they will eat after they have been
stopped. Give salt and ashes and char
coal; the potash helps digestion and
strengthens the bone. As long as
you keep the appetite good, the more
| you can get them to eat the better. A
change of food occasionally is good.
Give them beet leaves, Gull cabbage,
clover, sorghum, squashes, ripe APP
pies; any and all of these are excel.
lent. If, in addition, You keep the
pens clean and furnish dry Ned,
changed often enough to keep 1t free
from dust, you have done your part,
and will certainly be rewarded with
good, thrifty, profitable pigs.-South-
ern Cultivation.