CHAP. in. PIG FEEDING. 543 



effect to that claimed by the advocates of cooking. The pigs fed on 

 cooked food actually ate a smaller quantity of food, and yielded a 

 lower rate of increase from a given quantity of food, than did those fed 

 on uncooked food. 



We would strongly advise pig-breeders to mix their pigs' food twelve 

 hours before use, and with warm water during frosty or very cold 

 weather, and, if it be the practice to use maize meal for the very little 

 pigs, it is a good plan to scald this meal, as the young pigs are unable to 

 thoroughly digest the hard and flinty particles which are sure to be 

 present, however careful the miller may be in the grinding process. 



Some feeders of pigs still continue the old-fashioned plan of allowing 

 their pigs to wander about on the stubbles for weeks after harvest, and 

 so to run off the little flesh they may have acquired in the summer. Then, 

 about Michaelmas, they are put up to fatten, stuffed with barley meal 

 for a month or two, and placed on the market when it is already swamped 

 with large supplies of pork. Yet, in many instances, these same pigs 

 might have been fed off at far less expense during July and August 

 when the weather was warmer, and the consequent return from the food 

 greater, and the price of pork considerably higher. These two 

 important points are too frequently overlooked, whilst their bearing on 

 profitable pig-feeding is far greater than it used to be in former times, 

 since our bacon-curers are now able to carry on their business as well 

 in the hot as during the cooler months of the year. In defence of 

 the practice of running the stubbles it may, however, no doubt be 

 urged that the pig is a scavenger, and that, while on the stubbles, 

 the animal is developing frame which can afterwards be filled in 

 when the pig is brought into the yard. The procedure to be followed 

 must be determined according to the object for which pigs are kept, but 

 there is little doubt that the most profitable fat pigs are those which 

 have never experienced a so-called store period. 



Again, in those districts where summer dairying, or cheese making, is 

 practised, a profitable return may be obtained from the consumption of 

 the whey and of the skim- and butter-milk ; many old pig-keepers declare 

 that it is well-nigh impossible to rear a really first-rate lot of young pigs 

 without the aid of skim-milk. By giving the pigs a certain proportion of 

 green clover, lucerne, or tares, or even grass, in the summer, and in the 

 winter hay, chaff, and roots such as swedes, kohl-rabi, mangel, and 

 potatoes (the latter steamed or boiled), great benefit is derived. Some 

 persons have recommended the use of cabbages, but we have found them 

 to cause constipation and roughness of the skin in the pigs fed on them 

 to any great extent. 



Almost any kind of stuff may be used for the bedding of pigs, 

 coarse dried grass, dead leaves, carpenters' shavings, sawdust, moss 

 litter, sea sand, as well as straw of all kinds. For the sucking pigs, 

 however, wheat straw is absolutely necessary, as barley straw appears 

 to render the pigs more susceptible to a greasy discoloration of the 

 skin, and to the attacks of lice. The latter crab-like pests are easily 

 destroyed by the use of neat's foot oil ; this should be applied with an 



