136 HOW TO FEED YOUR HOGS 



in a good, healthy condition at the beginning of the finishing 

 period such hogs, for instance, as brood sows that have weaned 

 their last litters, or heavy, fairly mature 200- to 300-pound ani- 

 mals that are ready for a one- to two-month finishing period, or 

 old boars that have been castrated, and are ready for fattening, 

 to be marketed as fat stags. Young animals require to have corn 

 balanced, and these feeds are most acceptable: Milk of whatever 

 kind (whole, skim or butter), meatmeal tankage, alfalfa and red 

 clover pastures, rape forage and many others. 



Corn and Alfalfa. Corn and alfalfa pasture is our greatest 

 summer combination, both economically and physiologically speak- 

 ing. It is the real basis on which 'to build for greater swine profits 

 throughout practically all the United States, but more especially 

 in those localities where hogs are fed directly on the products of 

 the soil. Of course corn and alfalfa can often be improved some- 

 what by the addition of a little milk or tankage or corn oil cake- 

 meal or similar feeds. These two feeds, however, form the burWark 

 and foundation of the ration, the corn furnishing the fattening 

 and energy materials in general, which materials constitute in 

 reality the bulk of the ration, and the alfalfa making up its 

 (corn's) deficiencies in protein, mineral elements and vitamines. 

 Corn and rape is another good combination. Corn and red clover 

 is still another. In sections where rape and red clover do well, 

 they both run a close second to alfalfa as a general corn-balancing 

 swine pasture. 



Corn lacks not only in quantity and quality of protein but also 

 in mineral elements; the method of procedure is to supply these 

 proteins and minerals of the right sort. Generally speaking, in our 

 present stage of knowledge the remedy is to supply these good 

 quality proteins and minerals through the use of feeds that con- 

 tain them in the largest quantity, such high-protein feeds, for in- 

 stance, as alfalfa pasture or alfalfa hay (for broodsows particu- 

 larly), red clover pasture, rape forage, meatmeal tankage and 

 most acceptably of all any of the milks. These are rich indeed in 

 needed mineral elements, and ^are splendid because of this. In 

 addition, however, it is well to supply certain standard minerals, 

 letting pigs have them free-choice style, putting each of them in 

 separate containers, so that pigs can run thereto whenever they 

 will. These minerals may be mentioned and emphasized. 

 \ 



Limestone. This should preferably be finely ground. The 

 ordinary chalk found in the Dover cliffs of England is really a 

 pure limestone, being, chemically speaking, practically entirely a 

 calcium carbonate. Generally, we prefer a. calcium rather than a 

 magnesium limestone, although we are a little inclined to believe 

 that a good calcium limestone with a small content of magnesium 

 is satisfactory. Limestone furnishes particularly the calcium 

 which makes up some 40 percent of the dry ash of bone. A grow- 

 ing pig cannot eat enough corn to supply the lime or calcium con- 



