The Cook County herald., 1897-06-26
Pigs and Skim Milk.

| Pigs and Skim MIX.
AS spring is here it might be well
to remind ourselves of the value Of
skim milk as a feed for growing pigs.
Much as has been said in it's praise,
still think that few of us really appre-
c1ate how always Indispensable it lis
as a factor in a ration that is going
to make pigs grow most rapidly, or
nave ever calculated how much per
hundred the skim milk is worth, says
Prof. Smith in Country Gentleman.
Inc record of some experiments tried
at this station during the past three
years may be of interest to your read
ers on this and related topics. Having
an abundance of milk and relatively
1e" pigs, we approached the subject
irom somewhat different point Of
view from the average farmers; still
we were enabled to ask questions OF
the porkers and obtain answers from
them that are Of interest to every
dalryman at least. The first question
asked OF the pigs was how much they
would give for sweet skim milk if no
other feed were mixed with it. One
pen OF seven pigs, averaging 103
pounds in weight, gained 279 pounds
In i've weeks, drinking in that time
o,225 pounds of skim milk and receiv-
Ing no other food. They give us there
lore one pound of live pork for 22.31
pounds of skim milk. Reckoning these
pigs as worth 4 cents per pound on
foot, the skim milk was worth close to
lS cents per hundred. The same thing
was then tried with eight smaller pigs,
weighing but 31.75 pounds each. They
made pound of gain for each 1928
pounds of skim milk, or at cents a
pound for live pigs the skim milk was
worth almost 21 cents per hundred.
NOW, no one would think for mo-
ment OF feeding skinned milk to pigs
without putting some sort of solid food
with 1t, and naturally cornmeal comes
hrst on the list as the most common
grain feed for this class of animals.
Two pens of pigs were therefore Sc
lected to try what cornmeal and skim
milk were worth as pig feed. One pen
OF seven pigs averaged 8S.7 pounds,
and the other 66.l pounds when the
1eed1ng began. The milk was fed warm
from the separator, and pound Of
cornmeal added to each 7A pounds Of
milk. At the end of five weeks the
heavier pigs had gained sixty pounds
each, or twelve pounds per week, and
lad made that gain at an expense of
ten pounds of skim milk and one and
one-quarter pounds of cornmeal per
pound. The gains of the smaller pigs
were not quite as large in the aggre-
gate, but were made with almost ex-
actly the same outlay of milk and
meal. Valuing the cornmeal at SIS
per ton, and the pork again at cents,
the skim milk was worth with these
fourteen pigs, in five weeks feeding,
almost 40 cents a hundred. This
sounds preposterous, but these are the
tacts-a pound of pork returned by the
pigs for every ten pounds Of milk and
one and one-quarter pounds of corn
meal. We have been able in but two
cases out of many to get our pigs to
return us less than 20 cents per hum
dred for skim milk. In these days OF
low prices, therefore, it behooves the
factory patron and the dairy farmer
generally to husband we'll his skim
milk, feed it mixed with cornmeal to
well-bred pigs weighing less than 200
pounds, keep them comfortably housed
and expect to get from this source a
return for good share of the cost of
the labor on his dairy herd.