FEEDING AND FATTENING 317 



hogs will eat, without leaving any, or cloying their ap- 

 petites, and to maintain this intelligent care and close 

 observation are necessary. The old saying that the lazy 

 farmer who sits on the fence, watching his hogs until 

 tliey are through eating, generally markets the heaviest 

 pork is in exemplification of the rules of proper care in 

 feeding. Quiet and comfort are indispensable to thrift, 

 so dogs and boisterous boys sliould be kept away from 

 the lots and pens. 



What has been said in the preceding chapter regarding 

 the effect of warmth and shelter on the quantity of feed 

 required by growing pigs applies with as much force to 

 fattening hogs. Comfortable, sheltered beds, not too 

 deep and dusty, are equivalent to a considerable amount 

 of feed, as stock suffering from cold cannot thrive, and 

 to warm them with grain, applied internally, is much 

 more expensive than good nests and shelter, applied ex- 

 ternally. From an experiment made at the Kansas agri- 

 cultural college in 1882- 1883, in which one lot was 

 placed in the basement of a barn and another lot was 

 kept in an open yard with a board fence on the north 

 as the only protection, it was found that the pigs in the 

 unsheltered lot required 25 per cent more corn to make 

 100 pounds of gain than those which were sheltered. 

 The test was with pure-bred hogs, weigliing 200 to 250 

 pounds each, and was carried on for ten weeks, begin- 

 ning November 27, through weather ranging in tempera- 

 ture from 12° below to 31° above zero* out-of-doors. 



Many farmers find it convenient to accustom their 

 hogs to some particular feeding call which will bring 

 them together, and sometimes they can be called thus 



