SOFT BACON.

Waikato Times, Volume 120, Issue 20889, 22 August 1939, Page 19

SOFT BACON.

Soft hams and bacon will not hold their shape, are difficult to store, and also are difficult to cut. The primary cause of softness is the use of unsuitable feeds or combinations of feeds, faulty nutrition generally, and unhealthy physical condition, the adoption of faulty feeding methods, and, in fact, any cause or combination of causes that check the normal growth and development of the pig. A series of feeding tests made in Canada provided warrant for the following conclusions: — The use of barley alone, oats alone, or middlings alone, is more conducive to the production of soft sides than any of these feeds supplemented with skim milk. Any of the three feeds, barley, oats, or middlings, although giving satisfactory gains when supplemented with milk, are more conducive to softness in bacon than a mixed meal ration of good balance, although barley fed alone with milk compares very favourably with the mixture, with oats a poor second, and middlings of little use unless fed in a mixture. There is an intimate relationship between the stage of maturity of the physical condition of the animal and the firmness of fleshing. Rapidity of gain exercises a lesser, but at the same time an appreciable influence upon the character of the fleshing, the pigs that made poor gains being mostlv soft.