Book Description

"Green forage is essential to the economical production of pork. A permanent pasture supplemented with quick-growing, heavy-yielding, temporary forage crops is most satisfactory. There should be on an average 1 acre of permanent pasture for each brood sow kept. Some of the heavy-yielding, quick-growing forage crops will add considerable feed to the quantity produced by a permanent pasture. There should be mature crops, such as corn, soy beans, peanuts, or velvet beans for finishing the hogs in the fall. Oats, rye and wheat give satisfactory winter grazing. Green forage alone is little better than a maintenance ration. Where rapid gains are desired, the hogs should have a liberal allowance of grain. The rule should be, all the grain they will eat without waste. Woven-wire hog fencing tacked to stakes makes the best temporary fence. Growing forage crops and grazing them off on the land is an efficient method of improving soils depleted in organic matter. The exercise obtained in grazing exerts a beneficial influence on the health of hogs."--P. 2.