10 
Colorado Agricultural Experiment Station 
CONCLUSIONS FROM ALL EXPERIMENTS 
Selected Tankage 
Selected tankage is a valuable feed, as evidenced by many experi¬ 
ments in the corn belt states. It is hoped that the economical showing of 
rations containing from 6 to 9 parts barley or corn and 1 part of tankage, 
as compared with corn and wheat shorts, will overcome in the minds of 
Colorado farmers the still prevalent idea that hogs cannot be finished 
as economically here as in the corn belt. Selected tankage can be advo¬ 
cated without qualification as an excellent supplement to starchy grains 
in this region. We find that hogs do not as a rule relish it until they 
become used to its flavor, but after that no dificulty is found in getting 
them to eat heartily. 
Fertilizer Tankage 
In the process of manufacturing tankage, either for fertilier 
purposes or for feeding, the meat scraps are cooked with live steam 
at high pressure. Such cooking is sufficient to destroy disease germs, 
so no one need fear disease from either form of tankage, if the tankage 
after being sacked is stored where there is no danger of contamination 
from hog cholera. The chances of such contamination are so slight 
that they may be considered negligible, since tankage has been used 
extensively for years and has proven satisfactory. In the making of 
selected tankage, diseased carcasses as a rule are not used, heads and 
other bony parts and scrap meats being used. The bones themselves 
are removed before the product is dried and ground. In the cooking 
pi ocess a liquid portion evaporates with the steam and condenses on 
the inside of the boilers. This liquid is a very concentrated beef es¬ 
sence and is difficult to reduce to solid form, such reduction being 
brought about by treating with acid or running over hot rolls. This 
product, called stick, is usually put in with the fertilizer tankage, 
and fertilizer tankage also contains more hair and charred bone. The 
bone is pi obably a benefit rather than otherwise, and in our experiments 
the hair did not prove to be a detriment. There was no stick in the 
tankage used in these experiments, as the Denver packing houses were 
not putting the stick in at that time. But even when stick is put 
in fei tilizer tankage, I can see no objection to its use for feeding, pro¬ 
vided the stick is. dried over hot rolls. The advantage of using the 
fertilizer tankage is its lower price. At the time of these experiments 
selected tankage was $35 and fertilizer tankage was $21. Fertilizer 
tankage has risen in price to $23 and $3® now, but there is still 
considerable saving in its use. 
The following quotation from a letter to the writer by J. J. 
Ferguson of Swift & Company, will explain further the difference be- 
t\\ een selected and fei tilizer tankage. This letter was in response to 
an inquiry as to the possible dangers of feeding fertilizer tanka°*e to 
hoes: 
