Rensselaer Republican, Volume 28, Number 15, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 December 1896 — Feeding Hogs For Quality Of Meat. [ARTICLE]

Feeding Hogs For Quality Of Meat.

From Purdue Experiment Station. An inquiry has recently come to the Indiana experiment station from one of our well known swine breeders. Mr. I. N.' Baker, relative to the most desirable food for \ • preparing pigs for the market. The market to-day demands pork with a fair admixture of lean meat, such as can not be produced as a rule by a pure corn diet. The best result will be secured by using two or more kinds of grain, and also skim milk, if it can be obtained. The general run of feeding experiments in this country have shown thaf'where corn meal and shorts were fed, the) meat showed more lean, than when corn was fed alone. At the Wisconsin experiment station, a mixture of 431 lbs. corn meal and shorts, half and half, fed wet, produced 100 lbs. of gain, as compared with 784 lbs. whole corn or 517 lbs. corn meal, to make 100 lbs. gain. The shorts are muscle forming foods, and where these are used, a more vigorous pig usually results. Ground barley or oats may also be fed with corn to great advantage. There are many farmers in Indiana who grow oats extensively beside corn who could feed them to stock hogs, with corn, to far .greater profit than selling them at 13 cents per bushel. In a letter to this station, Mr. Barker says: “My own experiments in feeding hogs to produce the bestyquality of meat, have been similar to those you speak of and those of Prof. W. A. Henry, only I did not feed as much meal or corn. I fed ground wheat and oats in equal parts, and not more than one-fourth corn. I also fed skim njilk and ripe pumpkins in connection with these, and secured a much larger per cent, of lean meat than when fed exclusively on corn, and also a much stronger bone and a healt’hier hog and of course better pork.’ The farmers of Indiana ought not to allow a pound of skim milk to go to waste, from the creameries or farm dairies. It can be fed to great profit to growing pigs, for it will assist in rapid flesh development. Corn, shorts and skim milk make a. combination that will produce a high grade of pork. Or wheat may replace the shorts. These foods assist in producing flesh so rapidly as to enable the feeder to dispose of hia pigs to advantage when young, yet of good weight. The market demand is now for light pigs. Qp December 3rd., at the Stock Yards at Inditnapolis, light and medium pigs weighing from 153 to 262 lbs., as extremes, brought much better prices than heavier stock. At Chicago, late in November, “Assorted light" pigs were quoted at $3.40 to $3.45. “Good to choice medium weights” at $3.40 to $3.50, and “Good to choice heavy” at $3.25>53,35. It is hoped that there is enough of suggestion in this communication, to induce many of our feeders to use something other than pure corn as a food for their pigs.