Swine are generally fattened for pork at from six to nine months old; and for bacon, at from a year to two years. Eighteen months is generally considered the proper age for a good bacon hog. The feeding will always, in a great measure, depend upon the circumstances of the owner—upon the kind of food which he has at his disposal, and can best spare—and the purpose for which the animal is intended. It will also, in some degree, be regulated by the season; it being possible to feed pigs very differently in the summer from what they are fed in the winter.
The refuse wash and grains, and other residue of breweries and distilleries, may be given to swine with advantage, and seem to induce a tendency to lay on flesh. They should not, however, be given in too large quantities, nor unmixed with other and more substantial food; since, although they give flesh rapidly when fed on it, the meat is not firm, and never makes good bacon. Hogs eat acorns and beech-mast greedily, and so far thrive on this food that it is an easy matter to fatten them afterwards. Apples and pumpkins are likewise valuable for this purpose.
There is nothing so nutritious, so eminently and in every way adapted for the purpose of fattening, as are the various kinds of grain—nothing that tends more to create firmness as well as delicacy in the flesh. Indian corn is equal, if not superior, to any kind of grain for fattening purposes, and can be given in its natural state, as pigs are so fond of it that they will eat up every kernel. The pork and bacon of animals that have been thus fed are peculiarly firm and solid. Animal food tends to make swine savage and feverish, and often lays the foundation of serious inflammation of the intestines. Weekly washing with soap and a brush adds wonderfully to the thriving condition of a hog.
In the rich corn regions of our States, upon that grain beginning to ripen, as it does in August, the fields are fenced off into suitable lots, and large herds are successively turned into them, to consume the grain at their leisure. They waste nothing except the stalks, which in that land of plenty are considered of little value, and they are still useful as manure for succeeding crops; and whatever grain is left by them, leaner droves which follow will readily glean. Peas, early buckwheat, and apples, may be fed on the ground in the same way.
There is an improvement in the character of the grain from a few months’ keeping, which is fully equivalent to the interest of the money and the cost of storage. If fattened early in the season, hogs will consume less food to make an equal amount of flesh than in colder weather; they will require less attention; and, generally, early pork will command the highest price in market.
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: