130 HOW TO FEED YOUR HOGS 



Cowpeas are similar to soybeans but they are adapted to an 

 even more southerly climate than soybeans; therefore, in Iowa, 

 soybeans clearly excel them. In the south they come into their 

 own and can be used to advantage in some sections. 



Certain mixtures are sometimes used, like oats, Canadian peas, 

 and rape. This is all right, but commonly the biggest portion of 

 the pasture is furnished by the rape. Further north than Ames 

 field peas can be used to better advantage; where they will yield 

 20 or 25 bushels to the acre, as they do in Wisconsin, for instance ; 

 field peas make an excellent forage crop, particularly for hogging- 

 down after the grain has practically matured. In certain sections 

 of Colorado they can also be used to especially good advantage. 



We have tried a mixture of oats, hairy vetch and rape, but the 

 pigs did not like the vetch. They would go under it and over 

 it; they used it as a bed and as a cover, but they fought quite 

 shy of using it as a feed. Our advice, therefore, in regard to 

 vetch is to steer clear of it as a pig pasture. Of course, this does 

 not mean that it should not be used for its soil-renovating qualities. 



Bear in mind continuously the great advantages of pastures in 

 the saving of high-priced supplements. Grow them, placing spe- 

 cial emphasis on their replacement of meatmeal, tankage, milk, and 

 oilmeal and similar feeds. They will also save some corn, barley 

 and corresponding grain feeds. While they will save some of these 

 basal concentrates, yet their chief function is in balancing these 

 feeds. Remember that the pig is an animal so constituted by his 

 anatomy and inheritance that he is adapted to the conversion of 

 concentrates into meat. Primarily he is not a roughage-eating ani- 

 mal and, generally speaking, when we limit the corn ration" on 

 good pastures, poor ones more particularly, we do not save grain 

 (corn plus tankage) because it will take the pigs more days to 

 reach a certain weight and, as a result, therefore, the feed required 

 for 100 pounds of gain usually is greater than if the pigs were 

 pushed hard from start to finish. Old sows or maintenance hogs of 

 any sort can be turned out on good grass to good advantage, but 

 even then a little grain added to the pasture is a splendid help. 



In closing this dissertation on pastures it is well to emphasize 

 the amount of protein supplement necessary foy different classes 

 of swine. The following scheme for feeding corn and tankage on 

 high and low-protein pastures is adapted from Circular 26, writ- 

 ten by Eward and Pew of the Iowa Experiment Station : 



On High-Protein Pastures 



Alfalfa; rape., Dwarf Essex; red, mammoth, alsike, and white 

 clover; young, tender, sweet clover; entire first year's growth and 

 earliest stages of second year; quite early, tender, new coming 

 timothy, rye, or wheat; and short, " shooting, " tender, green, 

 succulent bluegrass. 



