FEEDING PIGS DURING SUMMER.

Globe, Volume XXIV, Issue 2692, 23 November 1882, Page 4

FEEDING PIGS DURING SUMMER.

The warm season, says a Chicago writer, is Nature’s time for vegetable growth, and ao less so for animal growth. But farmers oeem to regard it as a fortunately easy time to carry pigs on very small feed. Many of ±hom have the notion that the pigs should he tided over the summer upon a little pasture, and prepared to be fattened after the cold fall weather sets in. Grass promotes the health of pigs, and a proper amount of it is highly beneficial; but profitable feeding requires that pigs should make their most rapid gain on the warm weather. A hundred pounds can be put on pigs in summer as cheaply as 501 b to •601 b can in cold weather. This statement will be endorsed by all feeders who have tested the warm and the cold seasons for feeding under ordinary circumstances. 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 answer to this question must depend on 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. Maize for such pigs is, therefore, to be avoided, except in very small quantity. Maize 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 framework to grow, and should have food best adapted to that end. A clover pasture is a good beginning, ■mid this should be supplemented with nitrogenous and phosphatic food, such as •oats, peas, wheat middlings, linseed meal, or cotton seed meal, or, best of all, several of these mixed together. Linseed meal is perhaps the best extra food for young pigs in summer, because of its easy digestibility, soothing effect upon the digestive organa, 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 meal, and is constipating, while linseed meal is slightly laxative. Wheat middlings 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 heat combination of food would be 1001 b linseed meal, 200 lb of wheat middlings, and 1001 bof 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 501 b pigs gain Dlb each per week steadily for ten weeks in succession. At the same time another lot equally thrifty, on pasture alone, gained Ulb each per week.