SWINE 



535 



bean ration would be an unnecessary 

 use of tbis expensive food material. 

 Beans have the reputation of making 

 soft pork and pork that shrinks from 

 4 to 8 per cent more in slaughtering 

 than that made on corn. 



At the Michigan station the dry beans 

 were cooked in sufficient water and when 

 thoroughly done the beans and water 

 were transferred to a barrel and the 

 proper amount of corn meal added, the 

 whole being then thoroughly mixed. 

 With beans at $12 a ton there was a 

 good profit in feeding them to hogs 

 weighing between 50 and 125 pounds 

 each. Fattening hogs made a gain of 

 about a pound a day on beans alone and 

 1.5 pounds where an equal amount of 

 corn was fed with the beans. It is rec- 

 ommended that in feeding beans they be 

 salted for hogs to about the same extent 

 as required for man. It is noted that a 

 single feed of half-cooked beans may 

 rob the hogs of their appetite and relish 

 for this food, if indeed it does not put 

 them off feed entirely. Cooking can be 

 hastened if the beans are soaked over 

 night. 



Bran i s a bulky and fibrous food of but 

 little value in fattening hogs. It is very 

 useful in lightening such heavy rations 

 as corn meal. Breeders use it extensively 

 for brood sows, to prevent fattening. It 

 is not nearly as effective a supplemen- 

 tary feed to use with corn as middlings, 

 yet gives better results when used in 

 small amounts with corn than when corn 

 alone is fed. At the Nebraska station, 

 bran did not prove equal to either shorts 

 or cut alfalfa, when fed as one-fourth of 

 the ration for pigs, even when fed with 

 corn meal. Nothing was gained by fer- 

 menting the bran. 



Buckwheat i s seldom fed to hogs. It 

 should never be made to constitute over 

 one-half the grain ration for swine. In 

 larger amounts it may cause skin dis- 

 eases and other unfavorable symptoms. 

 Kellner recommends that when the whole 

 grain is fed it be cooked. Canadian ex- 

 periments indicate that feeding a ra- 

 tion of one-half buckwheat is not a 

 cause of soft bacon. Larger amounts 

 appear to produce soft pork. At the Ot- 

 tawa station it required 4.45 pounds of 

 ground and soaked buckwheat to produce 

 one pound of gain and 4.1 pounds of 

 wheat to produce a pound of gain. Hogs 

 fed buckwheat, dressed out a larger 

 percentage of live weight than when fed 



wheat. Such data as are available indi- 

 cate that buckwheat has a high feed- 

 ing value for hogs and the best results 

 are secured when it constitutes only a 

 part of the grain ration. 



Cerealine — At the Hatch station in 

 Massachusetts, corn meal proved equal 

 to hominy meal when fed with skim milk 

 to pigs and from 5 to 10 per cent better 

 than cerealine, a by-product obtained in 

 the preparation of the breakfast food 

 known as Cerealine Flakes. The mate- 

 rial consists of the hull and a portion of 

 the starch of corn. 



'Corn — This is the chief grain fed to 

 hogs in the United States. It is usually 

 the cheapest grain and when fed with 

 skim milk, pasture or some nitrogenous 

 food it is the most effective of all grains 

 in producing rapid and cheap gains. As 

 a single grain ration for growing ani- 

 mals it is lacking in mineral matter and 

 when pigs are confined in pens and fed 

 corn alone they should have access at all 

 times to hard wood ashes, bone meal or 

 like material. According to Snyder, the 

 ash of corn is entirely undigestible by 

 swine. As a result the bones of hogs fed 

 exclusively on corn are weak and not 

 developed to the full extent, the muscles 

 are not well attached and in shipping, 

 hogs break down and arrive in market 

 cripples. 



Hogs fed on corn shrink less when 

 killed and are more desirable and profit- 

 able from the packers' standpoint than a 

 hog fed bulkier rations. They are much 

 less profitable, however, to the farmer, 

 than when the corn is supplemented by 

 pasture, skim milk or other material 

 used to give variety to the ration or add 

 protein to it. When hogs are closely con- 

 fined in pens they will make satisfactory 

 gains on either ground or whole corn 

 for a few weeks, but the gains are not 

 long continued. Growing pigs are not 

 able to secure from corn the elements 

 necessary to build up their bones and 

 muscles and when fed on corn continu- 

 ously lose their appetite, gain but slowly, 

 and show marked evidence of unthrift 

 and malnutrition. 



On the average a bushel of corn will 

 make about 12 pounds gain in live 

 weight of hogs. When a ration made up 

 of two-thirds corn and one-third oil meal, 

 barley meal and bran was fed at the 

 Iowa station, the gain was 17.3 pounds 

 for a bushel of corn. This large addi- 

 tional increase was obtained by the use 



