78 



When any considerable number of hogs begin to show ma- 

 turity or fatness, it is advisable to put fresh ones in to follow the 

 cattle and clean up the waste. It is impossible to make hogs 

 in this state of flesh range as widely as the cattle will normally 

 range at pasture, and it is unprofitable to have hogs in this 

 condition hungry enough to gather the waste over a wide 

 area. The fat hogs may be either removed and finished alone, 

 or else supplied with sufficient feed in the vicinity of the feed 

 troughs and water to make a rapid finish and be marketed. 

 Above all, it is important that the watering troughs of the steers 

 be protected against the hogs, and that the steers be not allowed 

 access to hog water. 



In general, whatever factors favor rapid and profitable 

 gains on cattle are likely to be favorable to the hogs that follow 

 them. In other words, hogs make better gains when following 

 cattle fed corn and clover or cowpea or alfalfa hay than when 

 following cattle fed corn and timothy, millet, sorghum, or straw 

 for roughness. It has already been pointed out that the cattle 

 do very much better, and thus a four-fold profit is secured, viz., 

 an increased gain on the cattle, increased selling quality of the 

 cattle due to the extra bloom, an increased gain on the hog, 

 and an increased fertility of the land on which the feeding op- 

 eration is conducted. In reality, a fifth profit may be mentioned, 

 that which accrues to the soil upon which the clover, cowpea, or 

 alfalfa hay is grown. 



Likewise, hogs following cattle that are eating a grain ra- 

 tion containing linseed meal or cottonseed meal, especially the 

 former, will show greater thrift and larger gains than will those 

 cleaning up the waste from cattle fed corn alone. It is well 

 known, of course, that cottonseed in its raw state will kill hogs, 

 but in our twelve years' experience in running hogs after cattle 

 whose grain ration was from one-sixth to one-fourth cotton- 

 seed meal, we have never lost a hog from anything approximat- 

 ing cottonseed meal poisoning. Cottonseed meal does not show 

 so large a benefit upon the hog as does a similar amount of lin- 

 seed meal, but the benefit is appreciable over and above that of 

 corn alone. 



