298 PRODUCTIVE FEEDING OF FARM ANIMALS 



question especially in feeding swine, we shall give briefly the evidence 

 of experimental work along this line. 



Grinding Grain. Trials conducted for ten years at the Wis- 

 consin station 4 show that an average saving of 6 per cent was 

 secured by grinding shelled corn for pigs; in 11 out of 18 trials 

 conducted there was a saving and in 7 cases a loss by grinding the 

 corn. If corn is worth 50 cents a bushel, there is, therefore, a saving 

 of 3 cents per bushel by grinding, out of which the labor and cost 

 of grinding must be paid. It is evident from this result that grind- 

 ing corn for fattening pigs in general does not pay. In these trials 

 the pigs fed ground corn ate more feed and gained more rapidly 

 in a given time than those receiving whole corn. This is doubtless 

 the reason why some farmers believe that pigs do better on ground 

 than on whole corn. According to a summary by Eommel 5 of 19 

 trials with 297 pigs, it required 524 pounds whole corn or 479 

 pounds meal to produce 100 pounds gain, a saving of S l / 2 per cent, 

 or a little higher than found in the Wisconsin trials. Similar ex- 

 periments with small grains and peas have shown that there is a 

 saving of 12.3 per cent in feed by grinding. 6 It is advisable, there- 

 fore, to grind these grains in feeding pigs or to soak them before 

 feeding (see below). 



Cooking Feed. Cooking feed has now been abandoned for all 

 classes of farm animals except occasionally for swine. The question 

 of the advisability of cooking grain for fattening hogs was studied 

 by a number of stations in the eighties. Henry gives a sum- 

 mary of 17 trials at five different stations with cooked and un- 

 cooked grain (corn, barley, peas, rye, or shorts, fed separately or in 

 mixtures) for swine, showing that in all but one trial there was a 

 marked increase in the feed required per 100 pounds gain when this 

 was cooked (steamed) ; it required, on the average, 490 pounds of 

 uncooked feed per 100 pounds gain and 5G1 pounds of cooked feed 

 a loss of nearly 15 per cent in the efficiency of the feed, not con- 

 sidering the expense of cooking. This practice has now been gen- 

 erally abandoned, except in the case of a few feeds, like potatoes, 

 field peas, roots, chopped musty hay, etc., which are occasionally 

 steamed by some feeders to induce a larger consumption or improve 

 the palatability of the feed (p. 67). 



Soaking Feed. Soaking or wetting feed for swine is practised 

 by some feeders who believe they obtain better results thereby. It 



4 Report 1900. 



5 Bureau of Animal Industry Bulletin 47. 

 c Loc. cit. 



