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.
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
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.”
A Finney county, Kansas, farmer reports having pastured 30 pigs on one acre of alfalfa from May 1st to September 1st, when they weighed 100 pounds each and were in fine condition for fattening. Another Kansas farmer reports keeping 100 pigs from about the middle of April to September on five acres of alfalfa pasture. A little grain during the last two months would have gained him many pounds of pork. Many alfalfa raising pig-growers insist that their pigs can be maintained from May to October on alfalfa for one-half what it would cost for almost any other feed.
The Utah station found that young shoats gained one-third of a pound a day on alfalfa pasture without grain. But the station found also that the gain was not so great in older hogs. A Wisconsin dairyman reported that he kept nine sows all winter and spring on alfalfa hay and skim milk, without any grain, and raised from them 75 pigs, all healthy and vigorous.
The Colorado station considers that a ration of three-fourths corn and one-fourth alfalfa hay is the best for fattening hogs for market, but for young hogs not ready for fattening the proportions should be reversed. The station does not recommend grinding alfalfa hay for hogs, probably on the theory that the hog’s time is not worth much at best.