HOT WEATHER RATIONS

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19626, 21 October 1933, Page 15

HOT WEATHER RATIONS

REDUCED LIVE-WEIGHT GAIN. “Some years ago when I was weighing some hundreds of pigs every week I found during a heat wave that the weekly increase was very considerably slowed down, especially among the bigger pigs—those over 1001 b,” writes the well-known British authority, Mr. T. A. Stephens, in the Farmer and Stockbreeder. "This gave me an idea which I tested out. I had one lot of twentyfour pigs all more or less the same weight so I divided them In two lots. They were then getting 61b. each day of food. One lot I continued on the full 61b. ration and the second lot I reduced to 45 lb. Two very hot weeks followed, and during these two weeks the reduced ration pigs made practically the same increase (the average was 811 b. for the full ration lot and BUb. for the reduced ration lot), as the others, “While in the ordinary way I should not take much note of a single experiment covering two weeks, this one confirmed ray view that In hot weather pigs will not profit by heavy feeding. I now make it a general rule to reduce the amount of food fed to porkers and baconers, and also to growing stock during periods of excessive, heat.”