From the Nov. 21, 1917 issue of the Hickory Daily Record
Waste, or Damaged
Peanuts, Is Valuable as Hog Feed
By Dana T. Gray, Chief,
Animal Industry Division, West Raleigh, N.C.
A fall seldom passes without bringing with it some rainy weather
just when peanuts are in shock and in condition to be dragged. Some years the
loss of peanuts is exceedingly heavy. Other years it is almost nothing. When
farmers do suffer losses of this kind it is well to know that damaged peanuts
are valuable for hogs and that they may be substituted for the vast amounts of
corn and other concentrates.
In fact, damaged peanuts are so valuable that they should be
thought of as being in a class with wheat shorts, wheat bran, peanut meal, and
soybean meal rather than as damaged goods. It may not be so this year, but it
has often happened that damaged peanuts realized more as a result of being fed
to hogs than they would have brought had they remained sowed and been sold as
marketable nuts.
This test was made upon the Edgecombe Branch Station Farm right in
the center of the peanut-growing section. One lot of pigs was placed in a small
pen and given a ration made up of two-thirds corn plus one-third wheat shorts. A
second lot of similar pigs was fed the same amount of corn but damaged peanuts
were substituted for the wheat shorts. The pigs in the first lot, where corn
and shorts were fed, gained, during the whole feeding period of 149 days, 0.7
of a pound daily, while those in the lot where damaged peanuts were substituted
for the wheat shorts gained 0.8 of a pound daily. The peanuts proved to be
superior, too, to the wheat shorts in economy of gains. When shorts were
emplo9yed 7.3 bushels of corn plus 204 pounds of shorts were required to
produce 100 pounds on increase in weight. When damaged peanuts were fed, only 5
bushels of corn plus 141 pounds of peanuts were required to produce an equal
increase in weight. Pound for pound, the damaged peanuts proved to be far superior
to wheat shorts.
No comments:
Post a Comment