Pig Feeding Experiments, 



487 



grain ration, which may be quite moderate, except in the 

 finishing period. The modern feeder must combine the 

 advantages of economy of production resulting from early 

 maturity, and the excellence and enhanced value of the 

 finished product that can only come from the right kind of 

 stock well handled. This implies good breeding and con- 

 tinuous good feeding. These requirements are no longe;^ 

 merely subservient, bui: pr^^ctjcally imper^tiye/'''^ 



Experiments in Pig Feeding, 



At the Central Experimental Farm of the Canadian De- 

 partment of Agriculture some experiments have been carried 

 out to compare the effects of feeding pigs w^ith unground grain 

 and ground grain respectively. The grains tried included 

 oats, barley, maize, and a mixture of barley, oats, and pease. 

 The unground grain was soaked for fifty-four hours before 

 feeding. The pigs all belonged to two litters, and were as 

 evenly graded in groups as possible. 



A pen of four cross-bred pigs o^ an average weight of 

 97|- lbs. were fed on oats and skim milk. The quantity of 

 unground oats consumed by this lot per lb. of increase in 

 live weight was 4-21 lbs., and of skim milk 3-45 lbs. In 



* Cf. the Fifth report of Experiments on the Feeding of Sheep, in the Rothamsted 

 Memoirs, by Sir J. B. Lawes and Sir J. II. Gilbert, in which the following passages 

 occur : — " On the whole, it is concluded that there is considerable economy of food in 

 the system of early and rapid fattening of sheep ; and that, after the animals have 

 attained a moderate degree of fatness, it will seldom be profitable, and may 

 frequently be a loss to the producer to feed them further. The same remarks will 

 probably apply, viutatis inufandis, to oxen also." 



" The same rule does not apply with equal force to pigs. The dry substance of 

 the foods of pigs is, weight for weight, much more costly than that of the other 

 animals ; but, in their case, from the much larger proportion of increase they yield, 

 both for a given amount of dry substance of food consumed and for a given weight 

 of the body within a given time, it results that the amount of constituents expended 

 by the respiratory process bears a considerably less proportion to the gain in weight 

 than in that of either sheep or oxen. Again, their increase consists in a larger pro- 

 portion of fat ; and by the fatness of the meat its quality and value are to a great 

 extent determined. On the other hand, not only do the quality and rateable value of 

 mutton and beef reach their maximum, or nearly so, at a comparatively limited 

 degree of fatness, but it appears that the amount of constituents expended by respira- 

 tion increases more rapidly in proportion to a given weight of saleable increase as 

 the animals progress in fatness.'^ 



