ECONOMICAL STOCK FEEDING. gg 



QiTKSTiON. Do 30U ever feed anything to sharpen their appe- 

 tites ? 



Mr. Cobb. Not very often, except about a week in the fall I give 

 them a few little potatoes, and at sweet corn time I feed them al)out 

 five weeks with sweet corn cobs. I keep a dozen or fourteen hogs, 

 and keep them the year round, except while raising the pigs, on 

 wheat bran and cold water. 



Sec. GiLUKKT. As the results of your experiments, what do you 

 decide is the most profitable food for growing pigs? 



Mr. Curb. Wheat middlings is the best. It will produce twent^'- 

 nine pounds of pork for each one hundred pounds of middlings, 

 right along, week after week and month after month. I used corn 

 meal on trial, and found that one hundred pounds of corn meal 

 would produce about twenty-four pounds of pork. Wheat bran 

 wouldn't do much of anything for growing pigs in this wa}' ; it will 

 keep a hog alive, and that is about all it will do. There is not much 

 gain by feeding them wheat bran and cold water. 



Question. What kind of feed is two quarts of shorts and a 

 quart of corn meal? 



Mr. Cobb, That is pretty good, but have any of you ever 

 known of a pig taken at four weeks old and fed on corn meal alone 

 to seven months of age but it was driven off its legs? 



Corn meal was never made to be fed to growing pigs unless fed 

 sparingly a quart or so a day. It is the same with the growth of 

 pigs as it is with the growth of steers, which was alluded to in the 

 paper this afternoon ; the best results in gain you get on steers that 

 are three years old and under. With pigs you get the best growth 

 up to the time they are nine mouths old. These experimental pigs 

 were only kept till they were five months old and then dressed two 

 hundred and sixty odd pounds apiece. They were fed on nothing 

 but middlings and cold water from the time I bought them. I don't 

 know exactly how old they were when I bought them. 



Question. Do 3'ou feed your swine any vegetables? 



Mr. QoBB. Some ^-ears I have. The years that sugar beets 

 were sold I raised them two years and fed the pulp to my hogs and 

 cows, and called it an extra food. The hogs got a living upon that 

 food and the cows gave more quarts of milk than on an}- other food 

 I could give them, but I am not under oath to tell how good the 

 milk was. 



Question. Is cotton seed meal a good feed for sheep ? 



