SWINE 



553 



The only purpose for which hogs are 

 used is meat. The faster they can be 

 made to grow on cheap food the sooner 

 can they be marketed and the more prof- 

 itable they are. The more they eat of 

 the right kinds of food the faster they 

 grow. If skim milk, good pasture or 

 mixed clover and grasses are available, 

 most any grain can be fed and the hogs 

 will balance up the ration properly for 

 rapid gains. A good feeder, however, 

 never gives one kind of feed until the 

 appetites of the hogs cloy on it, but 

 varies the ration as much as possible. 

 The greater the variety of feed given 

 the more the hog will eat and the faster 

 will the gains be. 



Grain should be fed on a feeding floor 

 rather than on the ground. Ground feed 

 should be moistened and fed in troughs. 

 When hogs of different sizes are fed to- 

 gether the smaller ones suffer. Separate 



During the whole of this period the gain 

 should not be less than 1 pound per 

 day. During early feeding it should be 

 iVz to 2 pounds per day. Even during 

 the fattening period it will always be 

 advisable to feed a small amount of 

 such material as oil meal or tankage with 

 the other grain. 



FEEDING FOR QUALITY OF POBK 



Pork of the best quality is produced 

 from medium sized hogs; that is, hogs 

 weighing 105 to 250 pounds. Pork from 

 young hogs is likely to be soft and watery 

 and does not keep or cure up well. In 

 hogs over 250 pounds there is likely to 

 be too large a proportion of fat to lean 

 meat. Hogs should be gaining in flesh 

 when killed. The muscles at this time 

 are firm, plump and juicy. If killed 

 when the hogs are losing weight the mus- 

 cles are soft and dry and the meat is 



Fig. 350 — PIGGERY AT CENTRAL EXPERIMENTAL FARMS, CANADA 



lots should be provided. So long as hogs 

 are making fair gains on cheap feeds 

 it will be profitable to keep them, but 

 once they begin to draw heavily on the 

 grain bin they should be fattened and 

 sold. With pasture or cheap feeds it will 

 usually pay to feed hogs until they weigh 

 between 180 to 300 pounds. Most of the 

 fat hogs should be marketed by about 

 the first of December, since winter fat- 

 tening is much more expensive than 

 summer feeding when pasturage is abun- 

 dant. Pigs farrowed in March should 

 weigh 200 to 250 pounds at this time 

 and it is usually better to sell them than 

 to winter over unless the market is un- 

 commonly low. The brood sows and 

 the fall pigs should usually be the only 

 stock wintered over. When hogs have 

 reached a weight of 180 to 200 pounds 

 they can be finished for market in 4 to 

 8 weeks on heavy feeding. Corn is the 

 best single grain to give at this time. 



flabby and greatly inferior. The man- 

 ner of feeding and the character of the 

 food has a marked influence on the qual- 

 ity of the meat. In the United States 

 corn is counted one of the best feeds for 

 making a firm quality of pork. Ca- 

 nadian experiments, however, indicate 

 that, for the purpose of firm bacon pro- 

 duction, corn is not as valuable as mixed 

 grain, though much superior to such 

 foods as beans, buckwheat, cowpeas or 

 peanuts. 



Bacon — The best bacon is made from 

 the bacon type of hogs when killed at a 

 weight between 160 to 220 pounds. At 

 this stage of growth if the hogs have 

 been properly fed the flesh is firm, qual- 

 ity of the best and the proportion of lean 

 to fat meat about right. A great deal 

 of bacon is made from the lighter hogs 

 of the lard type, but the proportion of 

 lean to fat meat is not so great as in the 

 bacon type and the market price not so 



