FIFTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART IX. 



623 



are given which show the quick fattening of well grown shotes fed the 

 "cafeteria way," on blue grass, in the summer of 1914: Seventeen 225- 

 pound shotes on blue grass, for 68 days, with self feeders, there being 

 allowed separately dry shelled corn, of which they ate per head daily 

 7.39 pounds; meat meal (carrying 60 per cent protein), .18 of a pound; 

 whole oats, .07; wheat middlings, .04; linseed oil meal (old process), .10; 

 charcoal, .003 (fine charcoal may be made from corn cobs) ; and rock salt, 

 .003 of a pound. We could hardly have hand fed them to better advantage. 

 They gained 1.75 pounds daily, which is quite good, and required for 

 100 pounds of gain, these feeds: Corn, 422 pounds; meat meal, 10.3 

 pounds; oats, 4.2 pounds; middlings, 2.2 pounds; oil meal, .7 of a pound; 

 charcoal, .16 of a pound, and salt, .16 of a pound, or of total concentrates, 

 439.6 pounds. Charging the corn at 50 cents, meat meal at $2.50, oats at 

 38 cents, middlings at $1.45, charcoal at $3, salt at $1, and blue grass 

 pasture at $6 an acre, the cost of the 100 pounds of gain is $4.22. Cbarging 

 corn at 60 cents and oats at 45 cents, other prices the same, we have 

 $4.98. With $6 hogs, the return for a bushel of corn, all profits placed 

 on corn, was 72.7 cents. 



A quick thirty-day finish was put on two groups of sixteen 265-pound 

 hogs last winter (1913-1914), corn being fed in self feeders to the groups, 

 the first of which was fed tankage as a slop and the latter self fed dry. 

 The results are close. The figures based on Ames weights, follow: 



Average cLaily gain 



Corn eaten daily 



Meat meal eaten daily 



Feed eat*n per 100 pounds of gain 



Cost of lOO pounds of gain; corn at 60 cents, meat meal at $2.50. 



1.21 



5.61 



.40 



498 

 $ 5.81 



Practically, the results indicate close similarity. Of course, the allow- 

 ance of meat meal was made, based on a large number of years of ex- 

 perience. It is hardly probable that the average layman could approxi- 

 mate as correct a proportion of meat meal in hand feeding so closely as 

 was done in this case. In another experiment of this same character, 

 but tried on a different set of hogs, the self fed hogs made the better 

 showing, although the differences were small. One must not overlook 

 the advantage of labor saved in the self feeding method. 



In fattening old sows for market, our self feeder trials have been very 

 satisfactory. For instance: Two groups of yearlings, weighing 241 pounds 

 when started, one hand fed, the other self fed, on shelled corn, made 

 gains of 2.30 and 2.64 pounds daily, respectively. The hand fed ones 

 took 436 pounds of corn for each 100 pounds of gain, the self fed ones 

 417 pounds; the profit per hog in 58 days, corn costing 50 cents and 

 hogs selling for $6, was, when hand fed, $2.77, and self fed, $3.42, a dif- 



