The nutrition of the bacon pig. I. The influence of high levels of protein intake on growth, conformation and quality in the bacon pig

Abstract

The present practice of basing payment for bacon pigs not merely on carcass weight, but also on carcass quality as expressed in the factory grading results, has led necessarily to an enlargement of outook on the part of the investigator in the domain of swine nutrition. The interest of the experimenter in the past has tended to be restricted to such questions as the influence of nutritional factors on the rate of live-weight increase and the efficiency of food conversion, the problem of how feeding may influence carcass quality and conformation not having received the attention its importance merited. While the questions of the rate of growth and the efficiency, in terms of meal consumption, with which such growth is achieved are still matters of primary economic importance, it is realized that much more attention must be devoted than heretofore to the study of carcass quality and conformation in relation to feeding. In present circumstances, a nutritional investigation can scarcely be considered complete unless a substantial part of the research is carried out in the bacon factory following the slaughter of the experimental animals.