_CHAPTER XIII._ Alfalfa for Swine HOGS WILL EAT HAY In the preceding chapter it was stated that alfalfa is a valuable pasture or soiling crop for pigs. It is equally true that they will actually eat alfalfa hay. A hog is not usually ranked as a hay-eating animal but an exception must be made as to his eating alfalfa hay. As a pasture or soiling crop for sows and young pigs, alfalfa proves a wonderfully helpful ration for milk-making in the sow and for growth in the pigs. Experiments have shown that pigs make better growth when the dam is fed considerable alfalfa than those from sows fed the best of commercial rations, but with no alfalfa. Given two sets of pigs, one fed clover, rape and soaked corn and the other fed only alfalfa forage, the latter seemed to grow the more rapidly. For brood sows it is a most valuable food, either as hay, a soiling crop, or as pasture. The litters of such sows are generally large and vigorous and the dams have a strong flow of nutritious milk. Alfalfa meal in slop may be used with profit where the hay is not to be obtained. It is also claimed that sows fed on alfalfa during pregnancy will not devour their young, its mineral elements seeming to satisfy the appetite of the sow, while contributing to the fetal development of the pigs. [Illustration: =Five-year-old Alfalfa= at the time of its third cutting. September 8, and its root development. Grown at Manhattan, Kansas, on upland prairie having a heavy clay subsoil] [Illustration: =Showing Advantage of Early Fall Sowing= Beginning on the left the seed was sown August 19, September 15 and October 1 respectively. All were dug up April 13 of the following spring. Nebraska Experiment Station Bulletin 84] On a farm of Governor Hoard, in Wisconsin, all the brood sows have for several years been wintered on alfalfa hay of the third cutting, and their drink, without any grain until the last two weeks of gestation. Mr. Hoard says the object was to give the sows a food that should keep them in a non-feverish state and furnish protein sufficient to build the bodies of the forthcoming pigs. (Their “drink” was the skim milk from the dairy.) “It was a matter of experiment at first, our only guide being what knowledge and reason we could exercise from what we knew, or thought we knew, of the philosophy of gestation. The experiment proved to be a success from the first. The sows went through their work in fine condition, giving milk abundantly. The pigs came with splendid vitality, thus reducing our losses from early death fully 30 per cent over what they had previously been. The hay is fed dry and is thrown into the pen on the feeding floor without any cutting or chaffing whatever. We have sometimes thought we would try the experiment of cutting it into half-inch lengths and moistening it. Possibly it would take less hay in this way. The sows keep in good flesh, fully as much so as we like.”