PIG FEEDING EXPERIMENTS OF 1900-1901. 
ADDING ROUGHAGE OR ROOTS TO A RATION. 
An experiment to indicate whether dry alfalfa roughage 
could be given a place in a ration for swine, was begun on 
December ist, 1900. Nine Berkshire pigs were divided 
into three lots of three each and fed rations of mixed grain, 
mixed grain and dry alfalfa hay, and mixed grain and sugar 
beets. The mixed grain consisted approximately of two 
parts of corn and one of barley. The pigs would not eat 
the dry alfalfa at first, but they were made to eat it by chop¬ 
ping the hay rather fine and mixing with barley slop. 
The pigs were thrifty Berkshires raised on the College 
farm and were given a value of 4 cents per pound at the 
beginning of the experiment. The corn was worth 80 cents 
per hundred pounds and the ground barley $1.05 per hun¬ 
dred pounds. The pigs were fed 97 days and their value is 
given at five cents per pound live weight at the end of the 
fattening period. 
Table VIII. gives the kinds of food eaten, the average 
amount of each food consumed by each pig in the ninety- 
seven days, the live weight at the beginning and end of the 
experiment, and the average dressed weight. 
TABLE VIII. 
AVERAGE FOOD, WEIGHT AND GAIN PER HEAD. 
Average Food Eaten 
• 
Average Weight. 
Percent 
Dressed 
Weight. 
Corn. 
Barley, 
Sugar 
Beets. 
Alfalfa. 
At 
Begin¬ 
ning. 
At 
End. 
Gain. 
lbs. 
lbs. 
lbs. 
lbs. 
lbs. 
lbs. 
lbs. 
* 
Pen I. 
409.&0 
190.70 
55.30 
102.20 
272.30 
101.10 
86.10 
Pen II. 
381.30 
173.50 
154.70 
259.70 
105.00 
87.40 
Pen III. 
350.30 
184.30 
99.30 
148.30 
244.70 
96.40 
87.10 
In addition to their grain ration the pigs in Pen I. con¬ 
sumed an average of 55.3 pounds of dry alfalfa hay, a little 
more than one-half pound per day. They made the best 
gain but did not dress quite as well as the pigs in the other 
pens. Those in Pen III. ate approximately one pound of 
sugar beets apiece per day in addition to the grain ration, 
but they made the poorest gains. 
