HOW TO FEED YOUR HOGS 

 BY JOHN M. EVVARD 



PART II 



CHAPTER I 



WHAT CONSTITUTES AN ADEQUATE RATION 



It is no easy matter to compound a successful ration on paper ; in 

 truth, it is almost impossible to do so without having had consider- 

 able experience with the different feeds and also having at hand a 

 more complete analysis than is ordinarily given us by the chemist. 



To illustrate that one of our greatest feeds, for instance corn, is 

 woefully incomplete in itself, it may be well to mention a recent ex- 

 perimental test by the Animal Husbandry Section of the Iowa Ex- 

 periment Station in which we fed three groups of pigs in dry lots 

 as follows : 



Group A: Shelled corn, self -fed, plus block salt, 

 self-fed. 



Group B : Shelled corn, self -fed, plus bone mate- 

 rial, self-fed, plus block salt, self- 

 fed. 



Group C : Shelled corn, self -fed, plus meat meal 

 tankage (60 per cent protein), self- 

 fed, plus block salt, self -fed. 



The pigs were started out at the nice weanling weight of prac- 

 tically 42 pounds, and were fed 150 days. They were more than 

 71/2 months of age at the close of the test. The pigs receiving corn 

 only in separate feeders made an average daily gain of .1 of a 

 pound, consuming per head daily 1.56 pounds of shelled corn, in 

 addition to a little salt. They weighed at the end of the feeding 

 period, when they were practically 8 months of age, 57.34 pounds. 

 Think of it ! Pigs weighing 57 pounds when 8 months old. What 

 is the trouble ? Is it with corn ? Hardly, because corn is a healthful 

 feed. The big difficulty was that some other things should have 

 been provided in the ration that were not, and these should have 

 been such as would have supplemented the deficiencies of corn. 

 On this corn ration it took 1,446 pounds of corn to produce 100 

 pounds of gain, and, in addition to this, a little more than 2 pounds 

 of salt a total of 1,448 pounds of feed for every 100 pounds of 

 gain put on. 



Now the addition of bonemeal which carries a little protein with 

 it helps some. The pigs gained 50 percent more or .15 of a pound 



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