106 HOW TO PEED YOUR HOGS 



mals 7 blood. It is a cleanser, promoting laxative effects and thus in- 

 directly ridding the body of undesirable products. Animals nearly 

 always void more water in the excreta than they take in the solid 

 food. Water, therefore, is very essential, and should not be 

 neglected. 



Protein Another Essential. Protein of good quality must be 

 present. There are proteins and proteins. Proteins are made out 

 of 18 different building stones called ammo-acids, and these 18 

 basal elements are combined and re-combined in various and diverse 

 ways so as to make a large number of proteins, the number running 

 into hundreds of thousands. By quality we mean that the right pro- 

 portion of these proteins and building stones should be present, one 

 as compared to another, and it is highly important that the protein 

 mixture should be commensurate with the needs of the organism 

 that consumes it. 



Only those amino-acids which are necessary for growth and de- 

 velopment should be present, or else their precursors; that is, the 

 amino-acids which can be rebuilt into the essential ones, although 

 this is probably done only to a limited extent. To give a better 

 idea of this the protein quality, zein, which comprises about half of 

 the proteins of corn, is poor because this particular protein does 

 not have any tryptophane or lysine in its make-up, and these two 

 amino-acids are absolutely essential to growth and development. 

 "When one balances up corn, therefore, he must look to those feeds 

 that contain these two amino-acids particularly. That is why one 

 looks to milk, and meat products, and alfalfa pasture, and rape 

 pasture, and young tender bluegrass to supply these deficiencies. 



The protein quantity must be right. There must be enough of 

 the right " quality mixture/' and this quantity will vary as the 

 feeding period progresses. It will be different when the animal is 

 young compared to when it is old and mature. The amino-acids 

 that are in greatest demand in younger life are not so badly needed 

 in later life, neither from the relatively qualitative nor the quanti- 

 tative standpoint. Every one knows that a quite young growing 

 lard type pig, for instance, will require as much as 20 pounds of 

 tankage with 100 pounds of corn in a drylot, but the same pig when 

 he weighs 300 pounds only takes a pound or two of tankage with 100 

 pounds of corn. Now to reverse this process and give 1 percent 

 tankage when the pigs are young and gradually increase it to 20 

 percent when they are old, would be to turn things topsy turvy, and 

 to promote inefficiency. 



Minerals Must Be Present. Mineral quality is highly import- 

 ant. We must have the right kinds of minerals present in the proper 

 proportion one to the other. It is essential that such minerals' 

 as calcium, a material that forms 40 percent of the dry ash of bone ; 

 and phosphorus, one of the basal elements of bone and essential to 

 bodily development; and sulphur, a constituent of the proteins; 

 and magnesium, for general metabolism ; and sodium, absolutely in- 



