460 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



Note that the buttermilk pigs made the most rapid gains reaching 299 

 pounds in 156 days. It took the "no buttermilk" fed pigs sixty-two days 

 longer to reach 296 pounds. 



Note further that the pigs drank on the average a little over thirty- 

 two pounds of buttermilk per head per day, and that they ate less than 

 half as much corn, about a third as much meat meal tankage, and about 

 two-thirds as much wheat middlings as where no buttermilk was given — 

 evidently the buttermilk saved grain. 



Note still further that on 100 pounds of gain, although it took a little 

 over a ton of buttermilk or exactly 2,091 pounds, yet this 2,091 pounds 

 saved considerable grain, or, to put it definitely and concretely, this 

 little over a ton of buttermilk saved 294 pounds of corn, twenty-three 

 pounds of meat meal tankage, seventeen pounds of wheat middlings and 

 a quarter of a pound of salt. Putting it on a better unit basis, 100 

 pounds of buttermilk saved 14.09 pounds of corn, 1.17 pounds of meat 

 meal tankage, .31 pound of wheat middlings and .01 pound of salt, a 

 total of 16.07 pounds of grain replaced by 100 pounds of buttermilk. 



Charging the corn at $60 a ton or $1.68 a bushel, tankage at $80, 

 middlings at $50, and salt at $20 a ton this 100 pounds of buttermilk 

 saved 40.19 cents worth of feed or it was worth on the basis of values 

 given practically fifty cents a hundred pounds, this on the basis of it 

 being fed in very large quantities. 



Bear in mind that the buttermilk also saved time. In reality each 100 

 pounds of buttermilk saved practically a day's feeding of the pig which 

 meant that you saved a day's labor in the feeding of said pig every time 

 you gave him a hundred pounds of buttermilk in this comparative ex- 

 periment. 



With brood sows this section found that buttermilk has a higher re- 

 placement value than with shoats, this is natural and to be expected. 

 In one test we found that 100 pounds of buttermilk saved five pounds 

 of hominy feed, which is practically the same as corn, plus nine pounds 

 of tankage, — a total of fourteen pounds of feed. Counting the hominy 

 at $70 a ton and tankage at $80, the saving was 53 1/^ cents, and what 

 is more the young pigs did better when buttermilk was added to the 

 basal ration of hominy feed and tankage. 



With fattening shoats, therefore, we note that in the instance of 

 limited feeding a hundred pounds of buttermilk or skim milk is equal 

 to twelve pounds of grain; when fed in large quantities, sixteen; whereas 

 when fed to sows 100 pounds of similar buttermilk, fresh from the cream- 

 ery, saved fourteen pounds of grain with suckling sows. 



Buttermilk or skim milk, therefore, is valuable according to what it 

 replaces, and in practice in the com belt it replaces corn plus tankage 

 or similar supplement. We must place its value, therefore, not on the 

 price of hogs but on the price of the things that it takes the place of, 

 in reality the feeds we would use if we did not have the milk by-product. 



Most assuredly skim milk and buttermilk are especially valuable feeds 

 when it comes to balancing our ordinary rations, and why should it not 

 be so? Milk was produced for young animals, hence it comes to its own 

 to its fullest extent when fed to suckling pigs, for instance, or to young 

 weanling pigs that are just starting out in the race of life. 



