EXPERIMENTS WITH SWINE. 
SUMMARIZED BY 
W. H. WHEELER. 
CORN SILAGE FOR PIGS.! 
Some of the first feeding experiments with pigs related to the use 
cf different coarse fodders that had been sometimes fed and often 
recommended for feeding pigs by writers and speakers. 3 
In the trial of corn silage six pens of pigs (Durocs and Cheshires) 
were fed during several months in alternating periods of about five 
weeks, and in a second season two pens were fed during three 
separated periods and two pens for two periods. 
Under a ration including silage more food was always consumed 
per pound gain in weight‘than when grain only was fed, and in gen- 
eral the rate of gain in weight was slower the larger the proportion 
of silage fed. When not more than about 4o per ct. of the total 
food was silage the rate of growth was sometimes not much behind 
that under a grain ration. Silage was fed to the extent, in some 
periods, of from go to 95 per ct. of the total food, supplying from 
75 to 80 per ct. of the dry matter in the ration. : 
The results in general were that when corn silage constituted an 
average of about 70 per ct. of the total food the cost of pork pro- 
duction was considerably more than its market value and nearly 25 
per ct. higher than when corn was substituted for the silage. 
When not much more than 40 per ct. of the total food was silage 
the cost of pork production was about the same as when no silage 
was fed. The valuations of foods and the market value of pork 
were considerably lower that at the present time. In the later trials 
when silage constituted in different periods from 30 to 40 per ct. 
of the total food, growth was at a profitable rate and the ratio of 
food consumption to gain in weight compared not unfavorably with 
that under ordinary grain rations. 
In four out of six periods when silage was fed the ratio of gain 
to food consumption was considerably improved when salt was 
added to the ration at the rate of from % to ™% ounce per day for 
every 100 pounds live weight fed. In the two periods the rations 
without salt gave but slightly better results. It was noted that 


* Bul. 22 (1890); Rpts. 9: 141-151 (1890); 10: 203, 204, 207 (1891). 
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