164 HOW TO FEED YOUR HOGS 



Roots. Roots are splendid for swine production where they 

 can be grown to advantage. They have nutritional values entirely 

 out of proportion to their dry matter content when viewed in a 

 practical sense. The Danish people have done considerable work 

 with roots. They find that 1 pound of grain was replaced by 4 

 pounds of sugar beets or 5 pounds of fodder beets or 6% to 7% 

 pounds of mangel beets. It will be seen from this that roots really 

 are instrumental in saving grain. In some situations like in the 

 northern sections of the country, where roots grow to good advan- 

 tage, as in Canada, they have a profitable field of usefulness, par- 

 ticularly for brood sows and maintenance stock. 



Miscellaneous Feeds. Oat hulls are a poor swine feed, really 

 practically worthless. Acorns are splendid where they can be 

 found in abundance, particularly when the hogs gather them them- 

 selves. They produce a soft, oily pork, however, and need to be 

 balanced with good supplements, as corn. In acorn feeding, the 

 pigs should be hardened with good hardening feeds, such as corn, 

 barley or similar feeds. Peanut hulls are not adapted for swine 

 feeding. They are too coarse, rough and fibrous. 



Corn silage, is too bulky and fibrous for hogs. Its greatest field 

 of usefulness is with brood sows. When corn silage is offered to 

 hogs they . usually prefer to eat the corn first and then maybe 

 a little of the leaves. If they are kept real hungry, they will of 

 course eat considerably more, but this is not a profitable procedure. 



Garbage. Garbage is a splendid swine feed. It can be utilized 

 with swine to good advantage. It takes from 5 to 8 pounds of 

 garbage to equal 1 pound of mixed grain. To feed garbage suc- 

 cessfully it should be fed in large quantities, and kept before pigs 

 practically all of the time. Fattening hogs should not be made 

 to clean it up too closely. Better let the brood sows and the stock 

 hogs clean it up after the fattening hogs have eaten the best. Gar- 

 bage-hogs should be immunized, because there is more danger from 

 cholera in garbage feeding than from ordinary grain feeding. Gar- 

 bage hogs shrink on going to market, and do not dress out so high 

 as grain-fed hogs, but ordinary kitchen garbage produces a good 

 quality of pork. If garbage, however, were made up of acorns and 

 peanuts and other soft pork-producing feeds, one could hardly 

 say that it would be good in its effects on the pork. Inasmuch as 

 there are garbages and garbages it is difficult to say much about 

 the quality of pork it will produce unless one knows the kind of 

 garbage. 



Condimental Feeds. Condimental stock feeds usually are to 

 be discouraged in swine production, because they are commonly 

 bought on faith. They are a mixture of many ingredients and 

 hence have the disadvantages of mixtures. They consist of ingredi- 

 ents that oftentimes have not been demonstrated to be necessary. 

 They may be " guess " mixtures. They are sold by experienced 

 salesmen, usually, and that means that the buyer must * ' look out. ' ' 



