FEEDING PROBLEMS.

Franklin Times, 3 January 1923, Page 5

FEEDING PROBLEMS.

OATS AS A HOG FEED. The value of oats as a feed for hogs has never been clearly deter lined. As a feed, for market hogs they are generally looked upon with disfavour on account of the large percentage of hull they contain. Probably this prejudice frod the market hog standpoint has prevented then? from receiving the attention they deserved as r a feed for breeding stock. There is a place for them 'ifc| the ration of both classe/ of hogs. The truth of this was demonstrated by experiments conducted in the centre of the corn belt, where corn is the universal feed and where even less attention is paid to producing bacon in the market hog than is the case here. The lowa experiment station fed two lots of pigs from weaning until they were ready for the market. One lot received a ration consisting of equal parts of ground oats corn supplemented with tankage, the other a full ration of corn also supplemented with tankage. Both lots were on pasture. In the comparison of the twq rations it was ■ found that the pigs fed on ground oats and corn reached a weight of 250 pounds in 205 days, or five days less time than was by the pigs fed a straight corn ration. The ifeed requirements were slightly greater per 100 pounds gain with oats and corn than with the straight corn, hut the comment was made that the advantage in time required to reach marketable age showed the effect of the oats in developing scale and bone. There was no mention, of course, of the better bacon qualities that the oat fed hogs would show, but the fact that the hogs made more rapid gains where the oats were used indidicates that the prejudice against oats for market hoks is not well founded, particularly in the growing stages of' the younger pigs.. If parts of the hulls were sifted out for very young pigs' then the oats fed just as they come from the mill from the time the pigs are two months old until they are put in for the final finishing periods when the oats could be gradually taken away and replaced by barley or corn —oats might well be used as one, half of the grain ration* for the market hog. Information regarding the extent to which oats may be used in developing beeding pigs is also containpoundsed in the lowa tests in which breeding gilts on pasture were fed on shelled corn at the rate of three weight, a daily allowance of threetenths of a pound of tankage, and whole oats self-fed. During a 168day feeding period, gilts which weighed about 50 ..pounds to begin with ate from, two?: and a half to two and three-quskrters" pounds of the ,CM*ts. each day'/as- 4n average. They ccmsjiiued slightly ipbre oats :on blue igrass. :than. on alfafa or clover.;* The gilts raised on this ration developed into stretchy sows of good bone "anil size and farrowed strong litters of pigs the following spring. In this ( country where oats ara as a rule cheaper than corn, they might well form the basis of the ration for brood sows, young gilts and boars.