COAL FOR PIGS.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 664, 29 April 1914, Page 3

COAL FOR PIGS.

The feeding of pigs has recently been actively discussed by some of our pig authorities, and the giving of a quantity of small coal or to them daily has been recommended. This is an old practice; but there Beems to be -tome points about it not known or understood by even the greatest of pig men, says a wirter in the "Dairy." The writer once explained the practice to a class of students, and one of them immediately afterwards stated that his people had to drop the giving of coals, and to adopt earth instead, because the former stained the intestines so much that they could not be used for sausages. The writer's own experience was that there were great differences between various samples of coal; the pigs greedily ate that from certain coal pits and refused that from others. On mentioning this to a coalmaster, he found 1 hat one of the ways that coal owners had of testinig the quality of seams ot coal was to taHte the samples. The coal, no doubt, acts as a tonic to the pigs, but how it does go is not only absolutely indigestible, but even strong acid will not dissolve it. On the other hand, coal is better than either ashes or earth if it can lie used while the for one kind of coal over another ehows that there in something in it the pigs like. In the South country, where piga are often allowed to run loobo in the fields for a time to grow before being shut up to fatten, they do not require any such treatment, though they will go to the coal heap and help themselves if they get a chance, but when shut up in styles, and subjected to forcefeeding, they require something to be especially given them in thn line, and coals are best if there is no subsequent objection to their use.