MORE BACONERS

Taranaki Daily News, 24 September 1940, Page 2

MORE BACONERS

RETAINING YOUNG SOWS DISPOSAL AS PORKERS

The necessity of pig breeders retaining more young sows for increasing herds instead of killing them off as porkers will have to be more widely realised if the "more baconer" effort is to be anything better than a temporary business. The conversion of porkers to baconers meets an immediate need, and the extra 50. 60 or 701b means more gross weight and a correspondingly bigger return from the carcase, provided the price is the same, but, as has been stated, there is a void in Britain's imported bacon necessities of more than 50 per cent. This void will be available for the Dominion to fill. To meet that market the retaining of more sows is indispensable. An interesting development on this aspect of the pig industry comes from Hawkes Bay. The Council of Primary Production in that province has expressed perturbation regarding the number of young sows suitable for breeding that have been put through the freezing works there as porkers in recent seasons, and is considering a scheme to ensure that sows suitable for breeding, on being delivered to the works for killing, will be held for prospective purchasers. This is a position that should provide its own remedy with the drive for increased bacon production now in progress. Such a drive should automatically increase the demand for good utility type breeding sows— and it is already doing so in Hawkes Bay.