PIG-SEEPING FOR PROFIT.

Otago Witness, Issue 2504, 19 March 1902, Page 6

PIG-SEEPING FOR PROFIT.

The pig is one of the domestic animals w hit-h i> most \vide*v dispersed throughout the word, and yields to no other in its usefulness. It lives and thrives, on every kind of food, vegetable or animal. It grazes like the ox, and its stomach can digest what few other animals could Mvallow with impunity. No animal conveits a similar quantity of nutiitive food into meat, or can be made fat on so great a vailety of food. \et. to keep pigs pioOtably. a regu'ar system of breeding and feeding must b; pursued. Although theie vie various systems of bietnuig and feeding [»igs for jnofit. theie Me inly two which can be de.sciibed .is common thioughout the country. The majority of those mlio keep pigdo so with little (ji no know'edge of the svbject. and with, wo may .ilnuM <-.iy. sj.stenuttic lo^ 4 . Faiim'i- of I li l — il.i* 1 - \ouk upon !>'_;<■ ,c- little bet If th m the >-L,iven geis of the fdim. think them .is unik-M?i\ .n.; of e\en model .ittly t.iu'ful tieat ment. .mtl only fc<-.>p them to utilise t he w tsie piuducts. which must suflac a- food f<u them Anothei elas- make a study of tiie mdiistiy, with the ie>ult that they mnke an equally >y«-te-matic ])ioht. The teim "pioht" m con nection with agri'-ultiual fanning -tock canlid* fail to piove of mteiest to those who luok tm their living in gieat measure to the lne stock they keep upon their fond. Wheie a cl (ss of jnimal can be shown to be a profitable one to bleed and feed, a .stimulus .= j'ftoided to the development of a nuwut conducive to the piospenty of the o^cujiH'i of the land. Of Lite iheio has been a, maikecl change of \ie\v< m teg.ird to pig-keeping, and tliose who h tw adopted it as ,i distinctive feature of tlien farming bu-one'-s lia%e piop-nc-ied by the undeit <k.u^. The

satisfactory prices obtainable for marketable pigs, whether as pork or suitable-sized baconers, and the steady demand for wellfed, fleshy j'oung pigs have brought pigkeeping to be regaided as an important branch of farm industries. And well it may be, while pork commands a much higher price than beef and nearly double that or mutton. In reference to the present revived attention to pig-keeping by farmers in Great Britain, the Live Stock Journal says : "In comparison with the business of the cattlefeeder and the production of beef in England, it is abuudantly manifested that the pork industry is much the more profitable one, and various reasons might be assigned to show why this is so. In the first place, at the present time the pi ice per cwt of the fat pig alive, in London, is very much higher than that of the fat bullock, the carcase weights of the two being about equal in value per cwt— though heie the pig scores on account of his greatly-reduced percentage of offal, as compared with the other, in consequence of this disproportion, and this makes a material difference in the pockets of the feeders of the two animals. Then the early maturity which is a feature of judiciouslyjbred pigs, and which enables them tcr'be got ready for the butchers block when only a few months old, is a strong point in their favour ; but above all the enormous fecundity of the one animal gives it a very great advantage over the other, for. while the cow will only produce a single calf in the year, plenty o? sows bring forth and rear two litters in the same time, each consisting of 10 (or even more) piglets. Thus it is by no means uncommon for a 'sow to produce offspring in a single year of her life which will sell for 20 times the value of their dam. and this even when sold at market during the first year of their existence." This fecundity is unparalleled in any oilier of the live stock of the faim, and while at one time it enabled foreign competitors to flood the markets of Great Britain with their hams and bacon, so that it was .scarcely woith while for the home industry to compete with them, it seems as if they had found that the low prices they received rendered over-production unicmuneiative, and they are not likely to cause the same trouble in the future. When foreign bicon was retailing in Gieat Britain at 2d to 3d per lb, the producer must have suffered, for. as has been well said, "If a mon begged the pig and stole the meal to feed il on. he could get nothing out of it at thi't price. ' bin now the London wholesale pi ices quoted for it average 6d per lb. To again quote the Live Stock Journal: — "Nor is there half so much danger of the over-production of pigs either on the part of the foreigner or the home breeder -as there used to be. The very general demand for small joints of pork and lean sides of bacon necessitates the killing of the animals when quite young and scarcely half developed, so that the numbers bred must be vastly increased to keep up with the numbeis lequired by the pork butcher and the bacon-curer, and this will necessarily affect the price."

With such prospects as there are before them, farmers might well pay mcc attention to their pig stock, and regard them as one of the most prominent and profitable branches of the farming industry. In many districts they may be, in suitable weather, as much the denizens of the fields as are the cattle and sheep, and to allow them thus to obtain a large portion of their own living is perhaps the most satlsfacloiy way o± keeping them. With the prospect of a continuation of profits arising from the pioduction of poik and bacon, the intelligent farmer might well devote a portion of his land to the growth of suitable crops especially for the feeding of his pig stock. Happy is he whose rbirv refuse furnishes day by day a considerable portion of this, but still the growing of special ciops for the purpose, both cereal and gieen and root crops, should by no means be overlooked.

Pi otit from pig-keei>ing depends very much upon a lecognition in practice of (1) the adaptability of the bieeding sow, (2) the need of a tro&s. (3y the management of the breeding .stock. (4) and what may be termed ration-feeding. The practitioner rind« (we are not speaking of the pedigree" bieeder) that the best sow is one that is long in the body, "broad in the loin andchest, deep from the back to the abdomen, full m the ham. Such a pig may be as large as can be obtained, and it matters very little whether it is a halibred, a quar-ter-bred, or a mongrel In which pure blood i* ju*t traceable, so long as it is not a mere wastei upon which flesh cannot be put b\ good feeding. A sow which does breed quick-feeding pigs mated to a boar of sinii lii'"I ii'" blood may, and dojs in tlie case of some of the pine breeds, pioduce young which not on'v feed well, but become much too fat for the buyer, and this must be guarded against A ."-on should have liberty, inasmuch as exeici-e assists in the maintenance of heallh and vigoin, without which prolific and l.aidy litters aie next to impossible. The feeding of the sow, if in the sty or it paitly in the sty, mu«t be such that f.itnes-. "will not be encouraged, nor constitution impaired, and this biings us to what we may term lational feeding

Now tlie object of bleeding I'igs is the piodintmn of pig meat — poik or bacon Modc-in pi.ictiue, like mrdein them\ r . teaches that e.nlv niatuiity i 1 - not only the nio^l eLonomujl to the bieedcr. but mo^t appiecuiterl by tlie cuilm- and the consumer 'lhe meat is le«-, fat if the bieedmg is right, as well as moie tender Whatever may be said of the practice of feeding o'd baco.iu*. we are convinced that just as it Las been thioughout the country in general .''bandoned m favour of voting me.it, so does the feeder find that his piofit is increased when lie adopt- the practice of intituling euly instead of feeding late. It co-ts infinitely more to produce lib of meat on .in oldei pig than a young pig. and thus the biggei anim il fed and the longer it is fid the gieater the cost per lb. both live and cu'ease weight. Indeed, feeding may continue until meat is produced :■! an actual 'o~». until, indeed, an animal j-el'« at a <jood deal less, than it Lab (.oat to IceiL.