56 FORTY YEARS' EXPERIENCE OP A PRACTICAL HOG MAN 



they can be used with success as a succulent feed during the winter 

 months, but my experience is that the average farmer or any help 

 that he can hire will do mighty little getting down on the knees to 

 work among roots of any kind, which is necessary in order to thin 

 out and keep clean from weeds until they become large enough to be 

 cultivated in the proper manner, so the root question with us has 

 never, with the exception of one or two years, been considered in 

 our ration for succulent feed, preferring to use the last cutting 

 of green alfalfa instead. Let me emphasize the great importance 

 of pasture and succulent feed at all times. 



Cooking Feed. It is a well-known fact that the nutriment in 

 feed for swine, or its value as a flesh producer, is not increased 

 by cooking; but it is also a well-known fact that during the cold 

 months, at least in the northern^ states, much benefit is derived 

 in feeding Fall pigs and others not well on to maturity, a warm 

 feed rather than one mixed with cold, icy water. 



There are some kinds of feed, however, often fed during the 

 winter that require thorough cooking; particularly is this true of 

 potatoes, which some people use when they have a quantity of 

 small ones sorted out from the regular lot. Potatoes are of little 

 food value unless thoroughly cooked, and when so cooked and mixed 

 with corn meal and other ground grains are really a valuable 

 adjunct to the ration. Shelled corn is often fed to young pigs 

 during the winter, and this is much improved by being steamed 

 until soft, then cooled down to the proper temperature for feed- 

 ing, but such matters will be treated in another chapter. 



For Fall Litters. We have for many years made it a practice 

 to feed fall litters (either not weaned or recently weaned) during 

 the entire winter on a feed mixed with hot water that would make 

 it quite warm for the pigs when poured in the trough. For this 

 purpose we have used a boiler of about ten-horse-power capacity, 

 in which steam can be raised in a very few minutes, with pres- 

 sure enough to heat several barrels of water. While steam is 

 getting up the water is let into the barrels or mixing tank, which, 

 in our case, is on wheels and divided into four compartments, and as 

 soon as steam is up the hose is turned in and in a few minutes 

 the water is as hot as necessary. We then mix in the feed, perhaps 

 of several different mixtures in the four compartments, to ac- 

 commodate the animals of different ages and conditions. This 

 is fed and quickly eaten, when the pigs go back to their warm 

 sleeping houses, thoroughly satisfied and contented. Whereas, 

 if cold or ice water was used, it would require most of the day 

 for the animal heat to warm the pig up to its normal temperature, 

 thus taking more feed and giving far less satisfactory results. 



There are various methods of getting hot water for the purpose 

 of mixing the feed for pigs during cold weather. There is manu- 

 factured a very desirable outfit for heating water by process of 

 steam, with an attachment to temporarily or permanently warm 



