6—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, 'August 20, 1960 Swine Backfat Probing Comes To County Farm Backfat' probing, one of of meat type certified the newest tools in the swine and dam. industry, was used this week Farrowed on February If to help a Lancaster County an d 15, the gilts weighed ar farmer have his herd of pure average of nearly 200 pound, bred Landrace gilts certified with the lightest one ovei as meat type Individuals. 180 pounds at the 180 anc Backfat probing, as the 182 day mark, name implies, it a method of Probing is a fairly simple measuring the thickness of operation and does not cause the back fat on the body of an y undue injury to the a living hog. The eye of a sw i n e A small slit is piercec good judge can estimate the m the skin of the animal a amount of fat on the back of three' locations along a line a hog, but even the most three inches from the back trained eye is not accurate bone The first probe is tak enough to select breeding an- en a t a spot just behind the imals which will transmit to shoulder, the second just a their offspring the ability to bove the first rib, and the turn feed into red moat in- third just in front of the stead of fat. ham Measuring the thickness of the fat on the 10 six month old gilts on the Bird-In-Hand R 1 farm of Elam Reiff, Jr. was John Wolgemuth. Asst. Manager of the Lancaster County Farm Bureau, Inc. The backfat probing, de veloped and tested jointly by the U. S Department of Ag riculture and several state university experiment sta tions, is a practical method of measuring the amount of fat on the body of a hog without slaughtering the an imal. In early certification stud ies, litter mates of breeding stock were slaughtered and the backfat thickness was entered on the record of the i etamed stock. The ten registered Land race gilts used in the Lancas ter County probing trials were purchased from the Willow Tree Farm at Noble ville, Indiana and were out H. S. NEWCOMER & SON A. B. C. GROFF SHOTZBERGER’S WENGER IMPLEMENT CO. LANDIS BROS. ALAN C. BEYER After the slits have beer made in the skin, a smal steel ruler is inserted intc the opening and pushed thn. the fat When the rulei touches the muscle tissue the reading is taken and dis infectant is applied to the incision. An average of all thre readings is recorded, aloni with the weight of the gil on her application for mea certification. At the Reiff farm, the highest reading was a back fat thickness of 13 inches while the lowest was 0 9 in ches with no average under one inch and no average ov er 1 3. According to Dwight Youn km, Extension Swine special ist from Penna State Univer sity, the ideal for breeding gilts of this age is 200 lbs. of weight and between one and one and three tenths of an inch backfat thickness W NEW TRA COMING Yes, the juniors are true that John Deere will soon be announcing a new line of tractors. We’H be previewing theih at <f Deere Day in Dallas” August 30. What’s more, we’ve been told that these new tractors represent an amazing leap forward in power farming—an advanc* so progressive that it sets an all-new high in tractor performance, ease oi handling, and operator comforts Watd for onr announcement date, when we re turn from Dallas. We are looking for ward to showing you firsthand wha. these tractors are going to mean to yoi in greater production, lower labor costs and more leisure time. MOUNT JOT BUCK sire r'* >V ♦ * PROBING TO FIND THE THICKNESS OF BACKFAT on a six months oM pure Landrace gilt is John Wolgemuth, assistant manager of Lancaster County Faim Bui A slit is cut m the skin of the gilt and a small stainless steel ruler pushed into the along the gilt’s backbone The thickness of the backfat indicates the ability 0 f hog to turn feed into red meat rather than fat Backfat probing is one of the steps certification of meat type swine. The probing was done on the farm of Elam Reiff, Bird-In-Hand R 1 —L F pr Kexff, beginning in the present herd sire from the lowa The sire of the purebred Landrace business herd of Don Koch, Latmer, boar is out of the wmld about three years ago, sells Yorkshire business, Reiff be- d utter of Landing « breeding stock m sales twice lieves that Landrace are a ” “ . , a year at Blue Ball and at faster growing, leaner breed Reiff swme Wlll ha ' e die state Landrace sale at than any others he has tried fluence in the swine hen Harrisburg Formerly in the Last year, Reiff, bought his (Turn to page 7 ) yTZ'Z sSf,T '» v / i * ' NEW HOLLAND LANCASTER >y .- <•« v / -■*/•/' , m' ' A ■% ELM CHRISTIANA
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