PIGS FOR PROFIT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 30, 6 February 1933, Page 4

PIGS FOR PROFIT.

AID TO DAIRYING. SOME STRIKING FACTS. (Prom Our Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this day. Though there has been a marked revival of interest in pigs as a farming sideline in the Waikato during the last two years, farmers generally have failed to realise the great potentialities of the industry. With an assured market for porkers and baconers overseas, dairy farmers now possess a golden opportunity to counteract in a measure the low prices obtainable for butter and ■ cheese. Experience has shown, however, that despite the valuable assistance and information rendered by such organisations as the New Zealand Co-op. Pig Marketing 'Association, the Waikato Pig .Recording Club, and several dairy companies, the average farmer is still ultra-conservative when it comes to investing capital in any new enterprise. Owing to the advantages of dairy and meat by-products and grass, New Zealand could easily attain a premier position as a porkproducing country. Pork presents better prospects of success than any other farm product. ' Mr. H. M. Peirson, pig recording officer, of Hamilton, states that he was recently amazed to learn that a "farmer milking 60 cows was running all the skim milk into nn adjacent creek. Such a by-product, properly handled, would increase the returns from his cows by 2d per lb butterfat. On the basis of a 60-cow herd that farmer's cash returns from pigs should be at least £100, or £2 per cow at the least. Mr. Peirson can produce evidence _ that pigs kept under good grazing conditions will give greater returns than under any other method. Pig producers in the Dominion were only beginning to realise the value of meat meals as a supplement to skim milk and whey, and they had hardly started to make use of grass in the leaf stage. When the grazing tVstem of pig keeping was properly developed, the lessons of pig recording fully appreciated, and quickly-maturing strains of prolific sows were developed, then pigs would certainly rival cows as money-makers. Reference to a record obtained on 10 farms was made by Mr. Peirson. The farms concerned comprised 810 acres on which 400 cows were milked, the average butterfat per acre being 1131b, against the Dominion average of 801b. One sow was carried to every seven cows (against the Dominion average of one sow to 25 cows); 561b of pork was produced to the acre, against the Dominion average of 121b per acre, and 1121b of pork per cow, as against 361b per cow Dominion average. Thin 1121b of pork at 4d per lb would be worth £1 17/4. The cost of production for meals used would not exceed 7/4, thus showing a net return of £1 10/ per cow. Mr. Peirson emphasised that high profits could be made when the right pig was treated in the right WRy.