The Lynden tribune. [volume] (Lynden, Wash.) 1908-current, 1921-01-13
CHEAPER GRAINS
SPELL MORE PORK
BIGGER MARGIN IN HOG
RAISING WHEN PRICE OF
FEED AND HOGS is
NORMAL
King County Ranch Turns Out
100000 Pounds of Pork a
Month. Started Five Years
Ago

There is greater margin in hogs
at lower price for meat if you can
buy cheaper feed than there was when
pork was high and grain ditto, accord
ing to R. c. Woodruff, foreman of the
Pacific Meat Company's hog ranch
that covers 10 acres of logged off
land on the ridge between Kirkland
and Redmond. Looking after 5000
porkers is a hurry up job and Mr..
Woodruff paused occasionally between
looking after the construction of a
new grain house, weighing out the
pigs from No. ~ pen and answering
the telephone from Seattle to discuss
the why of pigs slueal.
The plant which he runs represents
an investment of about $35O,OO0 and
has been developed in the last five
years from a handful of brood sows
and about a quarter section of stumps.
Along one side of the clearing runs
what is probably the largest farrow-
ing house in the world. 1t is $50 feet
long and about forty feet wide with
pens about six feet by twelve feet long
running down both sides of it. The
house is steam heated and electric
lighted and the little pigs put in their
time growing under as ideal conditions
as clean pens, plenty of straw bedding
and an abundance of feed make pos
sible While in the narrowing house
they are inoculated with serum to pre-
vent hog cholera and other diseases,
this being the work of three men and
the veterinary while the job is on.
Out to Grass
From the narrowing house the pigs
go to growing pens where they have
the run of the different pastures and
then end up in the fattening houses
for the last few weeks of their exist
ence. The fattening floor is 200 feet
long by 60 feet wide divided off into
pens. The little pigs are fed a mix
/, ture of one part soy bean meal, one
part mill feed and Two parts ground
corn stirred in plenty of buttermilk.
When they are turned out they get
alfalfa hay and mixture of two parts
corn and one of mill run with butter
milk. On the fattening floor they get
all of the cooked swill they will eat
with about four pounds of corn day.
The pigs are dressed when about six
to seven months old and the plant
ships 500 a month averaging 200
pounds weight each. In the slaughter
ing rooms and fattening rooms an
overhead trolley system is arranged
to handle the pork and the watts of feet
which are cooked by steam heat at the
central boiler.
Not Much Sickness
The company has had little trouble
with hog cholera, but has to look after
the pigs to see that they do not catch
cold as they are susceptible to pneu-
monia. This is particularly true when
the fall rains begin and the weather
turns cold as the pigs will get wet and
then pile up and steam. When they
get sick with cold or pneumonia Wood
ruff treats them with a serum put out
by a California firm and with camphor
and wraps them up. Their prize
Poland China boar, Bobs Model, got
wet going from the train to the Puyal-
lup fair grounds where he took the
prize in his class, and has been sick
since then.
The company specializes III Poland
Chinas, Durocs and Berkshires, but
also breeds some Hampshires and
Chester Whites.
Feed Hard to Get
In the matter of feed Woodruff
found it hard to get what he wanted
during the period of high prices and
has welcomed the lower rates and
larger variety. The swill proposition
he finds more or less of gamble be-
cause the price of it fluctuates. Men
who do not know the game go into
it and bid up the price Of swill only
to fail and turn their contracts back
with a resulting slump in swill prices
He is experimenting with alfalfa and
expects to SOW forty acres this spring
although he does not believe 1t con
tains the nutrition found in aifalfa
grown east of the mountains.
Anyhow, pigs certainly are pigs u
Woodruff. He looks into the eyes O.
nice fat Poland China and sees Sc
many pounds of corn and buckets o
buttermilk and so on hauled IN on I'M
outfits four big trucks; and II ne see'
too much corn, or buttermlik ne NC
/, gins turning over in his nina asai'
all, the feed formulas he ever near
of in search of a new one that VIII