Raising Fine Bred Hogs 

 in California 



CHARLES D. PIERCE 





CONSIDER raising good pigs one 

 of the most valuable adjuncts of the 

 dairy business to-day in California. 

 In other words, hog-raising here is, 

 in my opinion, a "gilt-edge" propo- 

 sition when taken in connection 

 with the dairy business. At any 

 rate, it is as sure cash as perhaps 

 any other industry that I know of. 

 The two leading breeds, I think, are Berkshire 

 and Poland China, in the order named, but of 

 course every one to his taste. 



No product to-day in California grows into 

 money faster than pigs. Our stock comes into ma- 

 turity very early. California pigs have their 

 young in the spring and fall, and it is safe to 

 say that they have from eight to ten young on an 

 average. 



I calculate that they grow a pound a day. 

 When a pig is six months old he should 

 weigh 200 pounds, which is better than a pound 

 a day. I have a boar that weighed 650 pounds 

 at fourteen months old. A preferable weight for 

 killing in California is from 180 to 225 pounds. 

 Hogs of this weight seem to bring a better price 

 and seem to be more desired by the butchers and 

 by the public generally. 



I feed my hogs mostly skim milk, with a little 

 mill feed, corn, pumpkins, etc. Skim milk has a 

 great value when it is turned into pork. It is the 

 pig that makes it valuable, because unless fed 

 to hogs one does not get much out of skim milk 

 as a by-product. 



I cannot urge too strongly the desirability of 

 raising a good variety of stock. It costs so little 

 to keep good stock and it is cheaper in the end. 

 Indeed, the profit is many times greater. Thor- 

 oughbred pigs probably bring three times as much 

 as those raised purely for the market, and yet 

 there is big money in raising good stock for the 

 market. It doesn't cost any more to feed a good 

 pig than a poor pig. If you have a very scrawny, 

 poor-bred hog, he will probably consume more 

 food that the better-bred animal, and will not 

 fatten so rapidly, as he does not assimilate his 

 food as well as the thoroughbred hog. 



On our Riverside dairy ranch we raise fodder 

 corn. In the fall we let the cows in on the corn 

 fields and they trample it down. The pigs are 

 then turned in the field or the stubble is hauled 

 in to them, and they eat it up clean. We do not 

 allow our pigs to graze at large, as they fatten 



