464 FEEDING ANIMALS. 



tant is it that she should be well fed during the period of 

 suckling. She has often to produce more food in her milk 

 than is contained in the milk of an excellent cow, weighing 

 three times as much. Dr. Miles, of the Michigan Agri- 

 cultural College, found that Essex pigs three weeks old 

 consumed 3K Ibs. of milk each, per day, the first week, and 

 nearly 7 Ibs. per day the second week. A litter of eight 

 pigs at this age would drink some 24 quarts of cow's milk 

 per day. To enable the mother to give this large quantity 

 of food for her young, her diet must be rich and varied. 

 We have found three gallons of skim-milk, two quarts of 

 corn-meal, and four quarts of oats and peas ground together 

 an excellent diet for a large sow with nine pigs. This 

 barely keeps her from losing flesh. If you have not the 

 milk, one quart of oil-meal may be substituted and the 

 other food increased about two quarts, all given in a thin 

 slop. 



KATIONS FOR YOUNG PIGS. 



Preparatory to weaning, pigs should be encouraged to eat 

 food with the dam. They will learn to drink milk quite early, 

 but do not take to eating solid food until some three weeks 

 old. The great majority of farmers have skim-milk to feed 

 young pigs ; but in the absence of this best substitute for 

 the milk of the dam, the solid food should be prepared by 

 cooking. There are many rations which will be appropriate 

 to young pigs without milk, such as wheat middlings, oats 

 and corn-meal, in equal portions, cooked together: or 4 

 parts oats, 4 parts corn and 1 part oil-meal, cooked; or 6 

 parts peas, 5 parts corn and 1 part flax-seed, cooked; or oats 

 and peas ground together and cooked; or potatoes, corn 

 and oat-meal, cooked ; or 4 parts corn, 2 parts oats and 1 

 part decorticated cotton-cake, and many other similar com- 

 binations of food. But corn-meal alone is a very unprofitable 

 ration for young pigs. The food should contain all the 

 elements necessary to growing the frame and muscular 



