TO FATTEN PIGS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1296, 30 September 1876, Page 18

TO FATTEN PIGS.

1. Put them up in a covered pen, with a roomy yard of dry soil, to which the animals can have access at pleasure for exercise. If the Boil be not a dry one, then it Bhould be so well littered with coarse hay, straw, forest leaves, or something of the kind, as to be kept dry. In tho absence of a pen, enclose a sufficient dry space with any convenient fencing stuff, and lay a roof of boards over one corner of "it, sufficiently tight to shelter the hogs from rain and cold winds, and see that the ground here is well littered, and kept diy for them to sleep on. 2. Corn soaked till soft in cold water goes further in fattening hogs than hard dry corn, but to boil it soft is still better. If a mill be convenient for grinding the corn, it would be still more economical to make mush or pudding of it ; or the meal can be mixed up with cold or hot water, and suffered to stand till soured, and then

fed. This last is equivalent to a partial cooking. 3. When hogs are shut up for fatting, they should have at the rate of a heaping teaspoonful of fine salt put into each day's mess of feed, and a tablespoonful of wood ashes. These increase tho appetite, and serve to keep them healthy. If there be any danger of "cholera," a heaping tablespoonfnl of pulverised charcoal should also be added. It isagoodplan to put some wood or coal ashes in the pig-pen every week, for the hogs to root over and eat, or throw in some chunks of charcoal and punk or rotten wood for them to gnaw at pleasure. In this case the charcoal dust and ashes may be omitted in their feed. Be careful not to overdose with salt, for if hogs that are not accustomed to it could get at a large quantity, they would be liable to eat so much at first as to kill them. 4. Give all the pure fresh water they will drink, morning, noon, and night. Keep the hogs clean in their pens or enclosures, and don't allow any cattle or horse manure, or other putrescent substance, to be near, to give them the scab or mange.