VERMONT DAIRYMEN'S ASSOCIATION. 99 



some pigs. What do you do with your skim milk from the creamery — 

 what do you do with it? 



A. Feed it to the hogs, calves, hens. 



Governor Hoard. — I have a thoroughbred registered Guernsey cow; 

 I have a certain number of grades; I have pigs, and I got a very inter- 

 esting pig experience. I found that skim milk fed to my pigs up to the 

 time they weighed 175 pounds stood me in 30 cents per hundred pounds 

 for the skim milk; I then found to grade Guernsey heifers it stood me 

 32j^ per hundred pounds fed to registered Guernsey calves, over one 

 dollar per hundred. I rear a calf very carefully. I know it is a babe; 

 I know what every mother knows, that a babe must be handled as a 

 babe should be. Now my calves are reared and cared for so that when 

 they were seven months old I sold seven grade Guernsey calves for 

 $170, from $24 to $30 for seven months old Guernsey calves. 



Mr. Adams. — I don't think you could say anything that would be of 

 any more practical value than by describing exactly how you raised the 

 calves and fed them. 



Governor Hoard. — I fed those calves 3,500 pounds of warm, sweet 

 Skim milk; fed them $1 worth of oats and $1.50 worth of 

 alfalfa hay and 50 cents' worth of blood meal that I got at 

 the stock house — dried blood. The calves were kept in a little barn, 42 

 feet long and 32 feet wide, stanchions the whole length. The calves 

 were put into the stanchions (the only time I use stanchions for them) 

 to hold them while they drink their skim milk. When not eating they 

 run loose in the barn with a foot or two of straw put in there daily. 



After this man had paid me so much money for the calves I took out 

 $3 for that hay the oats and the blood meal. I allowed $3 for the 

 carcass of the calves, which I could sell to a calf buyer at a week old, 

 making $6, and I had from $18 to $24 as a return from d,W\) pounds of 

 skim milk. You may say I did not make any account of my labor, 

 but it is the same labor whether I have it in pigs, calves or anything. 



I am going to tell you something about pig raising. I had nine 

 brood sows last fall. I- told my farmer I was going to put those sows 

 upon alfalfa hay; not a particle of grain shall they have until they 

 forage. I went to Texas to spend the winter. My superintendent said: 

 "They will starve to death." I said: "No they won't." And those sows 

 went through the whole winter on nothing but alfalfa hay and water, 

 with occasionally a little skim milk left over from feeding the calves. 

 I was surprised myself at the result. I think I have stated before that 

 brood sows as a rule do not get sufficient protein food to make the little 

 bodies we expect from them. I said alfalfa hay contains 11 per cent, 

 protein, bran 12. The nine brood sows gave me seventy-eight pigs, and 

 of the seventy-eight I saved seventy-five. I sold the seventy-five this 

 last fall. If the price of pork had stood where it was a year ago I 

 would have made a handsome sum; as it was I made from them a fair 

 profit. I want to throw that idea right to you if you are going to 

 raise pigs you must give the mother the right kind of food to produce 

 the little bodies you want. 



