29 
Raising Hogs in Colorado. 
PREPARATION OP PEED. 
Grinding and Rolling .—The dry climate and intense sunshine 
in Colorado make the grain much harder and more flinty than those 
grown in the humid region. It is, therefore, usually not profitable 
to feed dry, whole grain. Rolling is preferable to grinding, and 
requires less power. Rolled grain is left in the form of flakes, 
while in grinding hard grains like Colorado barley, the ground 
particles of grain have sharp edges that are objectional. At the 
Colorado Experiment Station, Professor Cooke reported that 
ground bald barley was one-half better than whole bald barley; that 
ground feed barley was one-twelfth better than whole feed barley, 
and that ground corn was one-fifth better than whole corn. 
Soaking .—The general experience of swine feeders in Colo¬ 
rado is that soaking grain from 24 to 48 hours has the same bene¬ 
ficial effect as grinding, at less cost, but with more trouble. Care 
must be taken in hot weather not to let the soaking grain sour, and 
in cold weather to keep it from freezing until eaten. 
Cooking grain reduces its feed value. It has been found neces¬ 
sary to cook potatoes where any considerable quantity has been fed 
to hogs, and several feeders report good results from cooking 
sugar beets thoroughly, and then mixing the grain with the beets 
while they are still hot, but after the fire has been removed. 
LICE ON HOGS. 
Whenever a pig has good feed and surroundings and is not 
thriving, look for lice. Vermin will usually be found to be the 
cause of the lack of thrift. A great many of the losses laid to 
cholera, worms and mysterious diseases are actually the work of 
lice. 
A stockman new in the hog business, bought several sows. 
He built good shelter and gave them good feed and care. They 
had 150 pigs, and all of these but 12 died before weaning time. 
After 138 had died, a veterinarian was called in to find what disease 
was killing the pigs, and he found that they had all been killed by 
lice. They were covered with vermin. 
The writer inspected a herd of 300 hogs running on an alfalfa 
field and fed grain. They had a greyhound appearance, with 
rough hair, and were not over half so heavy as they should have 
been. After looking them over, the writer said that! lice were 
stunting the hogs. The owner insisted that there was not a 
single louse on the whole herd. Several hogs were caught and were 
found to be very lousy. 
The best cure and preventive is regular dipping, using some 
of the coal tar dips so extensively advertised and sold, or crude 
oil. When pigs are found to be lousy, dip twice, ten days apart, 
