044 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



I think many of us fail right here. I think that in order to get a good 

 start in a drove of pigs and to do one's best much depends on the treat- 

 ment and feed of the sows before the pigs are born and even the manage- 

 ment of the sows before they are bred. I think in order to get large litters 

 the sows should not be too fat and should be gaining in flesh at time of 

 breeding and that sows should be fed food such as oats, bran and oil meal 

 or some of the other by-products in order to keep pigs of good bone, which I 

 think is one of the things hardest to keep up to the standard of hog raising. 

 Then another critical time in the pig's life is the first two or three weeks 

 after birth. We get anxious and feed the sow too heavy and too rich food 

 which is often an injury to the sow and detrimental to the pigs, thereby 

 often ruining what, under proper treatment, would have made good hogs. 

 I know that some men will think that this is all nonsense but I am sure it 

 makes lots of difference what is fed to our breeding animals before they 

 give birth to their young. Have any of you ever noticed a bunch of fall 

 calves that were dropped in September or October. If so you will have 

 noticed that they almost always are of more than ordinary size and always 

 have extra large bone and muscle, the reason being that the foetus was 

 developed when the mother had nature's food for her to eat. 



The hog has a reputation which it does not deserve, namely of peculiar 

 filthiness of habits but there are none of our farm animals that will if 

 possible keep their bed so scrupulously clean. The too common filthiness 

 of the pig pen is rather the fault of the owner than of the occupant and a 

 dry and clean sleeping place is of great importance in the keeping of hogs. 

 Neither is the hog the stupid animal he is generally given credit with 

 being. There is no animal that if he gets where he ought not to be and 

 is pushed, can better remember where he got in or out than the hog. As 

 with other branches of live stock you cannot starve profit into a hog. 

 As in other things it holds true that what costs little brings little in re- 

 turn. I am not here to argue whether he should have all the grain he 

 could eat from the start or should be raised largely on grass for the first 

 six months of his life. I think that depends somewhat, but there are others 

 here to take up this phase of the subject but he should have plenty or 

 some kind of food from the time he begins to eat for himself. Another re- 

 quisite for a good crop of pigs is sunshine and warmth, two things con- 

 spicuous by their absence this last year, but warm weather does not gen- 

 erally come until about a certain time of the year and men looking over 

 their last year's crop of pigs generally conclude that the early ones did 

 best and often breed too soon, bringing their pigs too early, entailing loss 

 that they blame on the weather. 



But in the development of the hog all has not been a bed of roses. With 

 his early maturity, his fattening qualities, and his docility came disease, 

 sickness and death, and often when we have had our calculations made 

 as to what we would do with our hog money, and we were struck" with the 

 cholera we were made to quote the words of the poet, "Things are not what 

 they seem." 



Another thought here. Is there any connection between the scarcity 

 of corn and the high price of feed last year and the present healthful con- 



