FORAGE CROPS FOR HOGS IN KANSAS AND OKLAHOMA. 47 



SYSTEMS OF HOG FEEDING. 



Nearly every fanner who has succeeded with hogs has a feeding 

 system of his own, yet there are some features common to all. A 

 good illustration of the successful handling of hogs on a small farm 

 is that employed by a man in northern Oklahoma on an 80-acrc farm. 

 He has his whole farm fenced hog-tight and turns oif annuall}' from 

 it an average of 100 head of hogs. All these are of his own raising 

 and are grown and fitted for market with the crops raised on his 

 farm, with the exception that a little corn is occasionally bought. 

 He has 5 acres of alfalfa and each autumn sows 5 acres of wheat for 

 late fall and winter pasture. In the spring he sows oats to supple- 

 ment the wheat and alfalfa. The wheat is sown at the rate of 1^ 

 bushels to the acre, about September 1, and furnishes pasture in the 

 fall, when alfalfa pasture is getting short, and for a part of the 

 winter. The wheat will also furnish some pasture for the hogs in 

 the spring. The oats tide over until the alfalfa is ready for pasture. 

 Thus, green feed is furnished for the greater part of the year. The 

 rest of his 80 acres this farmer plants to corn. A part of this corn 

 is fenced off and " hogged down " in the fall. As fast as the hogs 

 need it the fence is moved over, and fresh corn is taken in. This 

 pasturing is begun at the same time that corn is usually cut up green 

 and fed to hogs, i. e., when it is in the roasting-ear stage. Spring 

 pigs are turned on this. This plan of feeding is kept up until the 

 remainder of the corn is all husked from the field. Then the hogs 

 are turned in to clean up the waste corn in the field. Last summer 

 cowpeas Avere drilled in the corn when plowing the last time. These 

 furnished nuich valuable feed in addition to the corn. 



In April this mah had 20 head of fall pigs averaging about 125 

 pounds. These shoats had had no feed except wheat and alfalfa 

 pasture and the waste grain they gathered from the field except a 

 little corn that was thrown to them each day in the late winter and 

 early spring. In April they were put on ground corn for thirty days. 

 During this time each ate an average of one-fourth bushel daily. At 

 the end of thirty days they averaged 225 pounds. This makes an 

 average gain of 3^ pounds per day, or a little more than 13 pounds 

 of gain for each bushel of corn fed. The market price of corn was 

 50 cents a bushel. The hogs sold at $5.50 per hundred, thus bringing 

 73^ cents a bushel for the corn fed. <■ 



This farmer raises two litters of pigs a year, farrowed in March 

 and September, turning off fall pigs in the spring and spring pigs in 

 the fall, selling at 6 to 8 months old. From March 15 to November 

 1, 1906, he turned off $720.50 worth of hogs and had 22 head in the 

 fattening pens, all of his own raising and all grown and fattened 

 on the products of his own farm. 

 21521— Bui. 111—07 -1 



