122 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Fus., 1899. 
for nutriment, and should be supplemented by foods especially adapted to bone 
and muscle building. Pigs of the larger breeds should receive suflicient 
nutriment to ensure about 1 1b. of growth per day, in order to reach the 
standard weight of 300 lb. when one year old. The boar should be kept on 
pasture as much as possible, and when confined should be provided with a lot 
for exercise. After the growth of the framework is completed, this animal 
should receive only sufficient food to continue in fair condition, all tendency to 
grossness being avoided. It is especially important to supply coarse foods, as 
roots, whole oats, bran, and boiled chaffed clover hay. 
FEED THE BROOD SOW. 
The feed for the sow before farrowing should be nutritious, but not con- 
centrated. Heavy, concentrated feed stuffs may be extended or given volume 
by using bran, which serves well for this purpose, and roots, which are much 
relished, and by supplying chaffed clover or lucerne hay softened with boiling 
water. Some corn may be fed, but meals rich in protein—oats, peas, middlings, 
and barley—should supply most of the nutriment. Breeders differ in their 
management of sows before farrowing, some insisting that they be held in thin 
flesh, while others would have them in high condition. They will prove satis- 
factory when in good flesh, provided it is put on under proper regulations as to 
character of feed and amount of exercise. As farrowing time approaches, let 
the feed be sloppy, and limited in quantity. Any tendency to costiveness 
should be overcome by feeding bran, oilcake, meal, roots, or other feeds of a 
corrective character. For two or three days after farrowing supply only a 
limited quantity of feed. A thin, warm slop made of middlings, oatmeal with 
a very little oileake-meal, poured a little at a time into the feeding trough, will 
quench the thirst of the new mother and answer all requirements. ating her 
young, an act quite common with brood sows, is unnatural, and reflects upon 
the management of the feeder, indicating that feed and exercise have not been 
properly regulated. 
IMPORTANCE OF EXERCISE. 
Sows carrying much flesh, made while confined in small pens, will prove at 
best unsatisfactory breeders. Exercise is easily secured by the use of pasture, 
and will tend to keep down unnecessary flesh. 
FEEDING SOW AND PIGS. 
If all goes well at farrowing time, the feed may be gradually increased 
after two or three days, with the increasing flow of milk and the growing 
demands of the pigs, until a full ration is supplied. Brood sows should be 
heavily fed, for the gains of young pigs are made at low cost for feed con- 
sumed. Good brood sows with large litters will usually fall off in weight 
despite the best of care and feed, but such decrease is no reflection upon the 
skill of the feeder. ‘In feeding a brood sow, the herdsman can draw upon all 
feeds at his command. Middlings, ground oats, and cornmeal are particularly 
useful, and should be liberally supplied ; some bran, ground peas, barley, and 
other grains will also prove helpful. The by-products of the dairy—skim-milk 
and buttermilk—are always in place, and may be used to almost any extent. 
Cooked roots, potatoes, or pumpkins, with a liberal admixture of meal, form an 
acceptable ration. 
At farrowing time, as soon as the young pigs have drawn their first 
sustenance, it is well to at one separate them from the dam, placing them near 
by in a chaff-lined box or barrel. Sows which have been properly handled 
before farrowing will not usually resist such separation. Here the pigs are 
safe from hari, and the attendant can pass them to the dam at intervals of @ 
few hours for nourishment. Mature sows are often so clumsy that unless 
some precaution is taken they will kill their young by lying upon them. After 
two or three days the pigs are suflicientiy strong and active to be entirely given 
