The Fargo forum and daily republican. [volume] (Fargo, N.D.) 1894-1957, 1912-09-25
FINISHING HOGS
WITHOUT CORN
EXPERIMENTS AT THE A. c. STA.
TON SHOW WHAT CAN BE
DONE WITH BARLEY, SHORTS
AND OTHER MIXTURES IN GET
TING SPLENDID RESULTS.

In the northern part of, the state,
in some localities, the enthusiastic
farmers and stockmen tried this year
to increase the corn yield of the state
by planting more than usual" said T..
j. Thompson. assistant professor of
animal husbandry at the North Dakota
Agricultural college, today. But un-
fortunately weather conditions may
not permit of its making a good yield
and some few farmers will have to
plan on finishing their hogs without
the use of corn.
This, OF course, is not a new system
of feeding swine. 1t has been done for
years. In North Dakota we have many
small grains that can be used most
successfully for feeding swine.
w have found at this station that
barley makes a very high quality of
pork as compared with pork made
! from corn.
THE small grains and especially the
barley has long been used for the pro-
.duction of bacon and in some of the
older countries across the ocean they
feed no corn and still produce some
of the most palatable sides of bacon
and pork Imaginable.
In 1906 two lots of pigs were fed
in comparison, one was fed on barley
and shorts; the other on corn and
shorts. The mixture was fed in each
case II part Of shorts to four parts
OF barley for lot one. and n part Of
shorts to four parts of corn in lot
two. -. =.
THE lots of pigs were practically s
months Of g when the experiment
was started, and this was the finish
ing Or fattening period in the
pigs life. .
THE results of this trial showed
that 1t took IS per cent more of the
barley feed than it did of the corn
ration to produce an equal amount of
gain on the pigs.
AT some of the other stations tests
have been conducted which have found
barley almost equal to corn when
ground and. fed in various proportions
to swine.
At the present price of barley and
the rainy days at barley cutting time
we are bound to have some barley
stained, so that it will bring a low
price On the market, yet it can be fed
to very great advantage and made in
to the best kind of pork. The favor
ite way of feeding barley it seems at
present is to have it crushed and made
into a thick slop.
Rye also does very we'll as a grain
ration for pigs, but it is not so good
a feed as barley. 1t is best to feed rye
ground in thick slop with shorts or
middlings.
Rejected wheat makes a good feed
for swine when fed with shorts or
middlings. At the station here we
found the gains made on pigs to be
nearly as much when the lot was fed a
mixture of shorts one part and re-
jected wheat three parts as that made
by a similar lot of pigs when fed one
part of shorts n three parts Of
corn. In each case the feed was
ground. The conclusion at the end of
the test was that it required 8.9 per
cent more rejected wheat than corn
to produce an equal amount of gain
on the pigs.
"a great many times the farmer can
feed some Of h smaller grains in con-
junction with shorts or middlings and
some of the feds rich in protein ma
terial to very good advantage and
profit.
The feeder should never neglect 20
feed a variety of feeds when it is pos
sible for him to do so. For instance,
if the feeder will feed a mixture Of
barley (ground) three parts and shorts
one part with ground alfalfa or clover
one part, he car normally expect a
greater gain on the amount of feed
consumed than if the clover or alfalfa
were neglected.
VIC IiLAu Ol Ou ASSO4llS I LoS wan
pigs that we get better results feeding
a mixture of four or five feeds when
mixed in proportion to finish or fatten
pigs than we do feeding a mixture OF
two or three feeds.
I'VE feed. or try to feed, one part
of protein (muscle %building) feed to
about eight to ten parts of carhohyd-
rates (fat producing) feed during their
fattening or finishing period.
IF the feeder has been careful in
raising his pigs and has provided the
proper kinds of nutriments for their
we'll being he will not have great
trouble in getting his hogs finished off
into prime pork. The small grains
have always been the mainstay in
swine feeding in the various parts of
the world and for finishing hogs off
into good porkers of a high quality
carcass, nothing can surpass the small
grains when put into the proper COM
binations. ..--
at is not always economical to feed
harley, oats, rye, wheat n other
small grains, but under some condi-
tons money can be made in their be-
ing made the principal part of the
feed for growing and finishing swine"