Swine are generally fattened for pork at from six to nine months old, and for bacon at from a twelvemonth to two years. Eighteen months is generally considered to be the proper age for a good bacon hog.
The feeding of pigs 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 he intends the animals. It will also be in some degree regulated by the season, it being possible to feed pigs very differently in the summer to what they are fed in the winter. During the former they can either be sty-fed or pastured, or both; and there is also a greater variety of vegetables and green food for them, as well as of dairy refuse; while in the winter they must be home-fed, and in most cases their diet limited to roots, peas, beans, or other such dried food, and wash composed of the scanty residue of the dairy, or supplied from the house or brewery.
WHEY, MILK, AND DAIRY REFUSE.
For sty-fed pigs the washings of the dairy, as butter and skim-milk, whey, &c., are excellent, and especially whey thickened with barley, or oat, or pea-meal, whey being more nourishing than skim-milk; the animals thrive and make flesh so well on it, that many farmers are of opinion that this mode of employing their sour milk is more profitable than making cheese. But when the swine have once become habituated to this kind of diet it must be continued, as they would fall off if put upon any other. There was a beautiful lot of Coleshill pigs exhibited at the last Smithfield Club Cattle-Show, belonging to the Earl of Radnor, aged twenty-one weeks, which had been fattened on forty-eight bushels of barley-meal and six bushels of potatoes, with an adequate quantity of whey. Wherever, therefore, there are large dairies, swine may be most advantageously kept, the excellence of dairy-fed pork being incontestable.
WASH, GRAINS, AND REFUSE OF BREWERIES AND DISTILLERIES.
The refuse wash and grains, and other residue of breweries and distilleries, may also be given to swine with advantage, and seem to induce a tendency to lay on flesh, but not in too large quantities, or unmixed with other and more substantial food; as, although they gain flesh rapidly when fed on it, the meat is not firm, and never makes good bacon.
Thäer advises that the refuse of brandy-distilleries should always be diluted with water at first, otherwise the animals will reject it, or, if they take it, become giddy, and be unable to keep their feet,
