BUMMER TREATMENT OF PIGS.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2582, 17 July 1882, Page 3

BUMMER TREATMENT OF PIGS.

The warm season is Nature’s time for vegetable growth, and no less so for animal growth. But farmers ssem to regard it as a fortunately easy time to carry pigs on very small feed. Many of them have the strange notion that the pig should be tided over the sumnieif Upas s little pasiuro, and prepared to be fattened after the cold fall weather seta in. G-ms promotes the health of pigs, and a proper amount of it is highly beneficial j but profitable feeding requires that pigs should make their most rapid gain in the warm weather. A hundred pounds can be put on pigs in summer as cheaply as 50 to 65 pounds can in cold weather. We believe this statement will be endorsed by all feeders who have tested the warm and the cold seasons for feeding under ordinary circumstances. Wo admit that swine houses may be built so as to maintain a miid temperature in winter, and then there would not be so great a difference as we have noted. But those who provide for a summer temperature in winter are thorough believers in full feeding at all seasons of the year, and need no admonition as to the economy of full feeding in summer. What is the appropriate grain food for pigs in summer ? The r-nswer to this question must depend upon the age and condition of the pigs. Pigs from two to six months old must have such food as will produce growth of muscle and bone—not fat. Indian corn for such pigs is, therefore, to be avoided, except in very small quantify. Corn is the most fattening food, the food to fill up the large, lank muscular frame, to lay on clear solid pork. But the young pig has all this frame work to grow, and ahould have food best adapted to that end. A clover pasture is a good beginning, and this should be supplemented with nitrogenous and phosphatio food such as oats, peas, wheat middlings, linseed meal, or cotton seed meal; or, best of all, several of these mixed together. Linseed meal, which can bo had at SOdols to 25301 s per ten in many parts of the country, is perhaps the best extra food for young pigs in Summer, because of its easy digestibility, soothing effect upon the digestive organs, and its peculiar adaptation to the growth of muscle and bone. Cotton seed meal has much more oil, more nitrogenous matter, and is rich in phosphates, but is not so easily digested as linseed moal, and is constipating, while linseed meal is slightly laxative. Wheat middlings, which is purchasable in the West, usually at 6iols to 9dols per ton, is also well adapted to the growth of frame and muscle in pigs, and will produce this growth at a low rate of cost. Perhaps the best combination of food would be lOOlba linseed meal, 2001ba of wheat middlings and lOOlbs of corn |meal, mixed together. This would give a mixture of qualities leaving nothing to be desired. The writer has used this combination with very great satisfaction. He has had lots of SOlb pigs gain 91b each per week steadily for ten wesks in succession. At the same time another lot equally thrifty, on pasture alone, gained 31bs each per week. The extra feed cost 12 cents, per week for each pig, while the extra gain was 61bs per week, or 2 cents, per lb.