Agriculture.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1639, 6 January 1883, Page 6

Agriculture.

YHUNG PIG FEEDING. Few persoiflfiieallyyknpW hoft u> feed young piga aright^'Thay'ientfjttlly overdo the matter, and giveihera soomitich at a time. They musf£aM vsllow%i ? tlie feed left in the trough, bo thai it is unfit for them, and when hunger forces them to eat it, it makes them sick. The owner, seeing feed in the trough, either adds moro to it, or waits till it is eaten. In cither case he does wrong. Before feeding the second time, the trough should always be washed, or swept out clean.^ Pigs should never be made to eat food in which they have tramped with their dirty feet. This leads to the remark, that their feet should not be dirty. The pen should be so constructed, that the feeding place— the trough— should be sufficiently elevated, so that the juices in the pen will not " nasty up" this part, and there should be bedding enough in the pen, to enable the nigs to keep their feet, and their entire bodies clean; when this is done, the trough will not be so dirty, and the pigs will do better. We have often cautioned Rural readers against giving piga too hearty food, as it is injurious to them ; bo is dirty food. The former produces derangement of the stomach and bowels, leading to diarrhoea, and, if continued, to inflammation of the bowels, and the latter to nausea, loss of appetite, and perhaps the same results. In either case the pigs do not thrive. Another mistake which must bo guarded against, is feeding swill or milk too sour. When wheat or rye bran is mixed with the swill, fermentation is very rapid, especially in hot weather, and the swill will reach a condition unfit for food, before the owner is aware of it, unless he mixes only a sufficient quantity at a time, for one or two feedings ahead. Fermentation in a swill barrel, where sour milk is mixed with the contents, is actively going on all of the time. As fermentation changes the character of food, the farmer often feeds his young pigs with just exactly that which is almost, if not absolutely poisonous, while he is supposing all the time, he is giving them the most healthful and nutritious kinds of food. For instance, he puts skim milk into his swill barrel, so much of it, that it is not fed out as soon as it is simply sour and lopperd, and it remains there until it undergoes the other forms of fermentation, and becomes either acetous or putrefactive, cither condition rendering it unfit for food. A swill barrel, to put it in plain language, so sour that its contents are either like vinegar or alcohol, or so stinking that putrefaction is evident, is not the proper medium for healthy pigs. The deleterious effects of bad food, may be counteracted, somewhat, by feeding charcoal freely, which pigs, with a knowing instinct, will always devour greedily. "A little, and often," is the rule of all successful pig-raisers; "a little," means just what the pig will eat without leaving the trough, and when it is first taken from the sow, it could be measured in a gill cup ; as it grows older and larger, the ration should grow with increased size and appetite. " Often," means, when the pig is young, not less than six times a day, and when older, not less than four, until the growing age is over, and the fattening season begins, when a pig will cat three times in a day, all the food it can digest. To do just right, the milk skimmed in the morning, should all be fed by night-time the same day, that is, skimmed, or sour milk should all be fed within 12 hours after skimming, and bran mixed in it should also be fed within 12 hours. In hot weather, (} hours would bo better. To manage this business properly, there should be two swill barrels, and mixtures be made accordingly, one being filled as the other is emptied. If the pigs are confined in a pen, a little green grass twice a day is excellent, lots of weeds will also find a ready market in the sty, if they are supplied green and fresh ; they will promote rapid growth, and a shoat will do well on them alone without other food. When corn is fed in Summer, the weeds and grass are cooling, and excellent correctives. A pig shut in a pen, should always have all of this kind of green feed it will eat ; they do not like it after it is wilted. We never had pigs do so well as they have this year ; our milk set in a Mosely and Stoddard Creamery, does not get sour, and is carried out to the pigs sweet enough in the morning to last till night, and sufficient at night to feed them early in the morning. This milk is kept during the day in an iron kettle, in the pig-house, and gets a little sour during the day on account of the germs of fermentation, or the sour milk on the sides and on the bottom, which start the work of fermentation actively, when the sweet milk from the creamery is poured in; feed six times a day, the troughs are about empty in a few minutes after feeding ; the pigs are always ready for a meal, and never have any occasion to squeal. Once in a while on a rainy day they are dipped into a tub of soap-suds and washed. This is a job the pigs relish about as well as the hired men, but nevertheless it does the pigs a great deal of good, and doesn't do the men any harm ; there is a quiet moral about it, however, which is salutary on a stock farm. — (la Rural New Yorker).