PASTURE FOR PIGS.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1271, 28 October 1911, Page 8

PASTURE FOR PIGS.

THE RESULT OP EXPERIMENTS. ■Without a doubt pigs that have access to somo tied of pasture or green feed can be raised muck mora cheaply than these which are clesely confined and fed Bololy on grain, writes a correspondent of the "Farmers' Advocate." In liie recentlypublishd report of the Alberta live stock commission;!', .it was stated that of the 263 farmers heard from re methods of feeding, 72 per cent, provided summer pas Jure, and that thirty three farmers in every seventy-two preferred rope to any other kind of pasture. To turn to the experiment stations, Professor Day, of the Ontario Agricultural College, found that pigs were raised much more cheaply if green food was substituted for some of the grain usually fed; that rape was the most valuable crop for this purpose, and that it was cheaper to foed the rape as a soiling crop, rathor than as pasture, but the former method took just trice as much time, and for this reason was often impracticable. Again, Professor Ccxlyic, of the Wisconsin Experiment Station, found that hegs pastured on rape mad* average, daily gains of l.OGib., and cost Us. Id. per 1001b. of gain; and that, on the other hand, hogs fed on grain alone made average daily gains of .351b., and cost Ms. p;r lCfllb. of gain. He concludes thus: "Pigs arc mwc thrifty, have bettor appetites, and niata correspondisgly greater gains when pastured on rape, in conjunction with a grain ration,' than when fed on grain alone. Rape is the most satisfactory and cheapest green feed for awino that we have fed." . Bape is usually considered to he about the best pasture that can bs grown for hogs, though somo prefer oats or barley, or a mixture cf the two grains. Lucerne is very highly spoken of. An acre of rape will, I think, support about forty pigs, but the number defends soni-what pn howmuch grain the pfjs are fed, in addition to the rano. It has been proved bv experiment that a greater gain por 1001b. of t;rain fed is obtained when pigs are frcl soiling crops in the pent than when they are pastured. Against this fact, however, is the great amount of time entailed in cutting the rape, or whatever t!vo soiling crop may happen to be, and carrying it to the pens. The pigs would sometimes be apt to go without their green feed*, especially during harvest ami threshing time;. There is money in pigs at tho pre.-ent prices. Stay with thorn and raisa them as cheaply as possible by the use of' skim milk ar.d of same kind of good pasture or green feed. Get the right type of pigs to make the quick gains, and vou will -et a good price for your barley 'and your labour.