Food Requirements of Pigs 361 



the food for milk formation are proportionally as heavy 

 with swine as with cows, and consequently the ration 

 should be one that will stimulate and sustain abundant 

 milk secretion. Such feeding is not only necessary, 

 but economical, for independent experiments indicate 

 that the food cost' of the growth of pigs before wean- 

 ing is no greater than it is after weaning. 



Skimmed milk or buttermilk combined with a mix- 

 ture of wheat middlings and any of the ground cereal 

 grains, barley, oats or corn, cannot be improved upon 

 as food for milch sows. The feeding should be liberal, 

 quite up to the limits of capacity, and even then the 

 dam suckling a large litter of young will grow thin. 



Feeding pigs for the market. If we merely consider 

 the nature of the body substance of swine in its rela- 

 tion to the constructive functions of the nutrients, it 

 would not be unreasonable to believe that rations with 

 a wide nutritive ratio are adapted to the needs of this 

 class of animals for growth. In a certain sense, prac- 

 tice ratines this view. Thousands of fat hogs have been 

 the product of almost exclusive corn feeding, especially 

 during the later stages of growth. There is no doubt 

 but that large size and an excessively fat condition 

 may be secured through a liberal supply of carbohy- 

 drate material, but such one-sided nutrition is not 

 now regarded as being adapted to the physiological 

 requirements of the pig or as producing pork which 

 meets the existing demands of the market. 



It is doubtful if any other species of domestic ani- 

 mal has been the subject of so much abuse through 

 improper feeding, combined with an unhealthful en- 



