PRACTICAL FARM EXPERIENCE IN FEEDING WHEAT

Many recent news items show where farmers have found it practicable to substitute wheat for corn in feeding rations.

A dispatch from Plainview, Tex., states that, according to County Agent E. R. Duke, every farmer in Dallam and Hartley Counties. who has wheat is feeding it to dairy cows, poultry, and hogs. A few men in that section plan to feed steers this winter on a ration onefourth of which will be wheat. Wheat will be used by a producer of purebred cattle to carry some of his best breeding stock through the winter.

Louie Van Buren, of Lathrop, Mo., a wholesale hog producer and former corn champion, already had used more than 650 bushels of wheat on October 8, 1930, and at that time was feeding on a car of rye. Mr. Van Buren is reported to have said that he finds wheat a little superior to corn and about equal to rye.

W. A. Long, manager of the Chester I. Long ranches in Ford County, Kans., is marketing his 12,000 bushels of wheat by feeding it to lambs and hogs instead of selling it.

In the Oklahoma Live Stock News for October 23, 1930, Frank Evans reports that he has been feeding hogs since 1911. Until this year he always depended on corn. He said, "Last June when I started this year's feeders the price of corn was high and going higher. I then wondered if I had better play safe and stay out of the game this time. Then harvest started and wheat was dirt cheap. Why not feed wheat? Other farmers had and got good results. I then planned to give it my first real test."

Space does not permit us to print Mr. Evans's story in detail, but to sum it all up he sold 311 hogs which made a pound of gain on 4 pounds of feed, or 400 pounds of feed to produce 100 pounds of pork. Wheat put through the hogs brought him a gross of $1.67 a bushel. This looked high to him, so he weighed all the hogs and all the feed, checked over his figures and "can't find any errors."

These are only a few of the many instances of practical farm experience in feeding wheat. Many growers who have had experience merely take it as a matter of course. If the price of wheat is high, they feed corn, and if the price of corn is high relative to wheat, they feed wheat. The two grains appear to be practically interchangeable in the rations and it all depends on the relative prices as to which one would be profitable to feed.

FEEDING WHEAT TO HOGS

Summarizing the experimental evidence on the value of wheat as a hog feed, these facts are outstanding: First, wheat may be substituted for corn in most rations for hogs. Second, wheat has about the same feeding value or slightly higher feeding value than corn. Third, it is necessary for some form of protein concentrate to be used to supplement wheat in the ration. Fourth, grinding wheat increases its feeding value 15 to 20 per cent and soaking will not take the place of grinding. Fifth, wheat when fed to hogs at prices which have prevailed this season has brought from $1 to $1.50 per bushel.

In most cases wheat has shown up to greater advantage when fed to hogs than when fed to other classes of livestock. Hog-feeding

experiments in which wheat was used have been reported to the Federal Farm Board from 15 States.

According to a recent publication of Purdue University:

When properly fed, wheat is an excellent fattening feed for hogs. Experiments have shown that grinding or cracking increases the feeding value of wheat about 15 to 20 per cent, while soaking increases it about 5 per cent. The feeding of coarsely ground wheat in self-feeders with tankage is a very satisfactory method of feeding wheat to hogs. Wheat of good quality, ground or cracked, is worth 8 to 10 per cent more than corn of equal quality. Where corn is available, a mixture of corn, wheat, and tankage is a very desirable mixture for hogs.

As to the relative value of the two grains, "When wheat is worth 75 cents a bushel and can be ground for 5 cents, making a total of 80 cents, it would pay to feed the wheat instead of 75 cent corn." In this way, Mr. E. T. Robbins, livestock specialist of the College of Agriculture at Urbana, Ill., indicates that the two grains are interchangeable in the ration.

M. W. Muldrow, extension specialist in animal husbandry at the University of Arkansas, says: "Wheat has a value about equal, pound for pound, with corn for feeding livestock when ground and fed in the proper amounts."

PRIZE WINNERS ARE FED WHEAT

Prize winning hogs can be fed on wheat as well as on corn. This is shown by the recent experience of the agricultural experiment station at College Park, Md. A prize-winning pen of hogs, fed on wheat, recently were exhibited by the experiment station at the 1930 Baltimore Livestock Show. These wheat-fed hogs were awarded the following prizes:

Reserve champion: Pen of five, under 160 pounds.
Reserve champion: Barrow, under 160 pounds.
Second premium: Pen of five, under 160 pounds.

Second premium: Individual barrow, under 160 pounds.
Third premium: Pen of five, under 160 pounds.

Fourth premium: Individual barrow, under 160 pounds.

The cash value of wheat when fed to hogs was brought out in a recent test conducted by the experiment station at East Lansing, Mich. In these tests wheat brought a return of $1.21 per bushel with hogs selling at 9 cents per pound live weight. In another test conducted this fall at the experiment farm in Madison County, Ohio, a group of 29 pigs, weighing 119 pounds at the start of the experiment, returned $1.67 per bushel for the ground wheat which they ate.

In Montana, Oregon, Idaho, and Utah, where corn is not raised extensively, wheat is one of the important feed grains.

"More wheat is fed to livestock in Idaho than any other concentrate," according to Julius E. Nordby, of the experiment station at Moscow, Idaho. The contributing factors are (1) the high transportation cost of wheat, (2) the relatively high yields of wheat as compared with corn, and (3) the fluctuating character of the local barley market. A test conducted by Louis Vinke, of the Montana Experiment Station, showed that a lot of pigs fed wheat and tankage made more rapid and much more economical gains and produced pork for 95 cents per hundredweight cheaper than a similar lot fed barley and tankage.

"Wheat is now used extensively in Oregon for fattening pigs and is commonly thought to be superior to barley," says James T. Jardine, director of the agricultural experiment station at Corvallis. "In all of our feeding tests the differences have been small and we interpret the data as showing that wheat and barley are about of equal value in fattening hogs. Wheat without a protein supplement always has been inferior to barley. Wheat with a protein supplement, either skim milk or tankage, has proved superior to barley under comparable tests."

The results of these experiments are summarized in Tables 1 and 2. Table 1 shows that it took from 241 to 463 pounds of wheat to make 100 pounds of pork. The amounts of wheat needed varied according to the other ingredients in the ration and the condition under which the feeding was carried on. In some States, hogs were put on supplementary pastures of alfalfa, clover, sudan grass, or rape. In other States no pasture was used; the hogs were fattened in dry lots. In Table 2 the average daily rations are shown. The amount of wheat fed per day per hog ranged from 2.88 pounds to 8.35 pounds. Before any grower adopts a feeding ration with which he is not familiar, he is urged to consult his local county extension agent or his State experiment station.

Ground Tankwheat age

Minerals

423

12

4.4

6

13

6