Sheep, Swine, and Poultry: Embracing the History and Varieties of Each; The Best Modes of Breeding; Their Feeding and Management; Together with etc.Jennings, Robert
Science
Sheep, Swine, and Poultry: Embracing the History and Varieties of Each; The Best Modes of Breeding; Their Feeding and Management; Together with etc.
Jennings, Robert
Poultry; Sheep; Swine
It is most economical to provide swine with a fine clover pasture, to
run in during the spring and summer; and they ought also to have access
to the orchard, to pick up all the unripe and superfluous fruit that
falls. They should also have the wash of the house and the dairy, to
which add meal, and let it sour in large tubs or barrels. Not less than
one-third, and perhaps more, of the whole grain fed to hogs, is saved by
grinding and cooking, or souring. Care must, however, be taken that the
souring be not carried so far as to injure the food by putrefaction. A
mixture of meal and water, with the addition of yeast or such remains of
a former fermentation as adhere to the sides or bottom of the vessel,
and exposure to a temperature between sixty-eight and seventy-seven
degrees Fahrenheit, will produce immediate fermentation.
In this process there are five stages: the _saccharine_, by which the
starch and gum of the vegetables, in their natural condition, are
converted into sugar; the _vinous_, which changes the sugar into
alcohol; the _mucilaginous_, sometimes taking the place of the vinous,
and occurring where the sugar solution, or fermenting principle, is
weak, producing a slimy, glutinous product; the _acetic_, forming
vinegar, from the vinous or alcoholic stage; and the _putrefactive_,
which destroys all the nutritive principles and converts them into a
poison. The precise points in fermentation, when the food becomes most
profitable for feeding, has not as yet been satisfactorily determined;
but that it should stop short of the putrefactive, and probably the full
maturity of the acetic, is certain.
The roots for fattening ought to be washed, and steamed or boiled; and
when not intended to be fermented, the meal may be scalded with the
roots. A small quantity of salt should be added. Potatoes are the best
roots for swine; then parsnips; orange or red carrots, white or Belgian;
sugar-beets; mangel-wurtzels; ruta-bagas; and then white turnips, in the
order mentioned. The nutritive properties of turnips are diffused
through so large a bulk that it is doubtful if they can ever be fed to
fattening swine with advantage; and they will barely sustain life when
fed to them uncooked.
There is a great loss in feeding roots to fattening swine, without
cooking. When unprepared grain is fed, it should be on a full stomach,
to prevent imperfect mastication, and consequent loss of the food. It is
better, indeed, to have it always before them. The animal machine is an
expensive one to keep in motion; and it should be the object of the
farmer to put his food in the most available condition for its immediate
conversion into fat and muscle.
The following injunctions should be rigidly observed, if one would
secure the greatest results:
1. Avoid _foul feeding_.
2. Do not omit adding _salt_ in moderate quantities to the mess given.
3. Feed at _regular intervals_.
4. _Cleanse_ the troughs previous to feeding.
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