The Pig Part 12

Some thirty-five years since the present writer made some small experiments in the feeding of cooked and uncooked whole maize; in each case it was found that the pigs ate a greater quant.i.ty of uncooked than cooked maize, and made a greater proportionate increase in weight from the food consumed. Only one opinion appears to be possible, and this is that the cooking of food for pigs, save potatoes, entails a loss of time, an increase in cost, and a reduced return.

CHAPTER XVI

A PIG CALENDAR

The pig-keeper, like the gardener, seldom has to seek for employment, indeed his work may be said to be only occasionally completed. There are always many little odd jobs to do, which if neglected may result in loss, or a greatly increased amount of work at some later period. The old proverb "A st.i.tch in time saves nine" is equally as true in connection with pig keeping as with any other form of work.

In years gone by the month of January was considered to be quite a slack time for pig-keepers, the sows and the store pigs usually found the greater part of their living in the yards where the cattle were fed on the straw which was continually being placed in the cribs as the old-man-of-the-farm threshed the corn out of it with his flail. Many of the cribs had slatted bottoms so that any kernels of corn which were left in the straw would drop through and be picked up by the pigs which found their way under the cribs. In most of the old-fas.h.i.+oned large yards a corner would be railed off in which the pigs would be given a few turnips, swedes, or small potatoes, and occasionally a handful or two of beans or even a sheaf of beans. Those fatting pigs which had not already been converted into bacon for consumption in the farm-house were fed mainly on meal ground at the local wind or water mill from the tail corn grown by the farmer. At the present time the most up-to-date pig-keepers so arrange that many of the older sows farrow during this month of January so that the sows have their second litter of the year late in the month of June or early in July in order that both litters of pigs obtain the greatest amount of benefit from the growing and hot season, since pigs thrive best when the days are lengthening and when the sun s.h.i.+nes.

Of late years we appear to have had somewhat severe weather in January.

This has rendered it the more necessary that care should be taken in providing water and wind-tight sties, in which the sows farrow. Warmth with free ventilation is needed. The latter is particularly necessary after the pigs are a few days old, as these do not suffer so much from cold as they do from damp and draughts. Of course whilst the sow is farrowing warmth is imperative, as the moist little pigs when first ejected very quickly become chilled in severe frost, unless they are promptly wiped with a dry cloth, allowed a draught or two of new milk from the sow, and then placed in a box or hamper three parts filled with dry wheat straw. When once the pigs become thoroughly dry the cold does not affect them very much, providing that the sow furnishes her family with a full supply of milk. The cost of heating a little water so that the sow and also the young pigs as soon as they begin to eat may have warmed food, will be slight, as there is nearly always a fire required in cottage and farm-house during the cold weather. Warm food makes a vast difference in the thrift of pigs, especially of young ones. Very slight observation will reveal the marked difference in the comfort of a pig which has had a meal of warm or of cold food. In the former case the pig will return to its nest and is soon lost in sleep, whilst the poor beggar which has had its breakfast on cold and occasionally frozen food will be the picture of misery and shaking with cold, much of its natural heat produced from its last meal being required to warm up the food ere its digestive organs can commence work. Coal and wood are at all times less expensive to warm up food than the animal fat which is burned in nature's lamp.

Provision should have been made for the supply of some kind of vegetable food which pigs require, particularly when in confinement. Kohl rabi, swedes and cabbages, of which the first named is the best, are all suitable, but the most nouris.h.i.+ng are artichokes, which like the three former should be fed raw, and potatoes which should be cooked ere they are fed to the pigs. The difference in the feeding value between cooked and uncooked potatoes is great. It is scarcely necessary to point out that all vegetable food fed to pigs should have been protected from frost.

The operations connected with pig-keeping are very similar in February to those of the preceding month. Towards the end of the month kohl rabis will have lost much of their feeding value. On sunny days a run out for a few minutes will be of great benefit to the young pigs over a month old; as soon as they cease to gallop about they should be shut up again, as if allowed to lie down they may contract a chill which might result in "cramp" or rheumatism. Sows with litters two or three weeks old should be allowed out of the sty each morning and afternoon for a short time.

The month of March brings with it an extra amount of work for the pig-keeper, who will now think of selling the pigs born early in January unless he purposes to keep them on and have them ready for sale as fat pigs in harvest time, when there is always a good demand for medium sized fat pigs. Anyway the sow pigs intended for breeding will have been picked out and earmarked, this last should not be neglected after the others have been spayed.

This last operation has of late years been much neglected; this is a great mistake, as experiments have clearly proved that on an average sow pigs which have been spayed will make an equal gain in live weight on 5 per cent less food than will an unspayed sow pig, when both have become some five or six months old, and the periods of strum have commenced.

The sows which farrowed in January should now be weaned from their pigs, and should be ready to be mated within a few days. The sows should be carefully watched for the signs of heat or restlessness. Some sows give little indication of this unrest, which is almost certain to appear within four or five days providing the sow is in a healthy and vigorous condition. To miss the sow means a loss of three weeks of most valuable time, besides the risk of trouble in getting the sow to conceive after she had been baulked. With the pa.s.sing of the month swedes and artichokes will have lost much of their nourishment; mangolds can now take their place. It is a good plan to expose the mangolds to the air for a few days prior to feeding them to the pigs; this exposure hastens their ripening and reduces the proportion of water. Of course care must be taken to prevent them becoming frozen, as in March this might be the case.

In the Southern counties tares, lucerne, and gra.s.s are sufficiently forward towards the end of April to be cut and fed to the pigs which are confined in the buildings. The pigs both fat and store will fully repay the cost of labour in the cutting and carting of these vegetable foods.

Brood sows both in pig and with litters dependent on them, should be allowed their liberty in the gra.s.s fields. This will both greatly reduce the cost of keep and tend to their thrift and well doing. Young pigs over a month old should have a run out both morning and afternoon. Newly weaned pigs which have been well done are always in keen request in the months of April and May at prices higher than in any other portion of the year, owing to the demand from the cheese-makers who have a superabundance of whey, of which 12 lbs. when fed in proper combination is considered to be equal in value to 1 lb. of meal. Unfortunately, so many dairymen do not study the requirements of the pig, and imagine that it will give a good return from an excess of liquid in the form of whey.

Without some concentrated food the pig will not thrive on whey. Numbers of young pigs are also required in those districts where b.u.t.ter-making is carried on to consume the b.u.t.ter milk, and in ordinary times much of the separated or skim milk. In the feeding of this again the results are not so good as they should be owing to neglect. Both foods have been rendered unbalanced owing to the extraction of the b.u.t.ter fat, so that although new milk may be fed alone, the others require additional food which should contain some oil or fat to be fed with them, or they cause indigestion and want of thrift, particularly in young and immature pigs.

The roots of all kinds, save potatoes and mangolds, have ceased to be of much value before April ends, vetches and lucerne will prove to be the best of subst.i.tutes. Spring cabbages are generally of more value for human consumption than can be obtained from their use as pig food. If there be any gra.s.s land available the in-pig sows and the stores, should there be such, should now find the major portion of their food out of doors.

As a rule far too little attention is paid to the growth of lucerne in this country. It is undoubtedly one of the most nutritive of our vegetable crops. It also produces a large weight of food extending over several months, and continues fruitful for many years providing attention is paid to the keeping it free from gra.s.ses. It has the additional advantage of furnis.h.i.+ng a full supply of food when the weather is so dry that gra.s.s and some other foods produce little. It is true that in the initial stage it requires time and care, but the results from it amply repay both. One of the best seasons for sowing it is the month of May. The operation is simple, the land having been cleared the seed is sown in drills about 1 ft. apart, the quant.i.ty of seed required being at the rate of 20 lbs. per acre, say 2 oz. per pole or a drill 35 yards long. As soon as the plants are high enough the land should be hand hoed, and if kept free of weeds a light crop can generally be cut from it towards the end of August. In the following years it will produce at least three cuttings annually.

Some persons are of opinion that as lucerne is such a deep-rooted plant manure is unnecessary. It is true that the roots penetrate several feet into the soil, still an application of short manure or rotted vegetable matter applied each autumn will give a good return.

The chief point in the use of lucerne for pigs and in the production of a maximum crop is to cut it when young. The pigs will thrive on it far better in this state than when the stalks become hard and sticky. In the latter stage it is likely to cause constipation. It is best not to graze it with either horses, cattle, or pigs, but benefit to it results from folding it in the autumn with ewes or other sheep which find most of their other food on the stubbles, commons, heaths, etc.

All the sows and the yelts intended for breeding should now spend their whole time out of doors. It might be noted that lucerne will grow on almost any kind of land providing it is well drained--stagnant water destroys it.

The duties of the pig-keeper are very similar in the month of June to those of the previous month. Prior to the outbreak of war it was becoming general amongst the most practical pigmen to continue to fatten pigs all the year round. The old-fas.h.i.+oned idea that pork was not a suitable food during any of the months in which there was not the letter "r" had become exploded. Not only did the bacon curers require a supply of fat pigs weighing from 200 to 220 lbs. alive, but there was a good demand from the butchers for small fat pigs weighing from 80 to 140 lbs.

alive.

It must not be forgotten that a smaller quant.i.ty of food is required to produce a pound of pork during the summer than during the winter months.

This has been clearly proved in many experiments. The difference varies according to the temperature. In the very cold weather experienced in some portions of the United States it was found that some pigs actually made no increase in weight when well fed, the whole of the nutriment having to be utilised in keeping up the bodily warmth of the pigs.

The months of July and August see little change in the duties of the attendant on pigs. The old-fas.h.i.+oned plan of running the pigs on the corn stubbles has almost gone out of fas.h.i.+on. The improved system of harvesting the crops leaves less corn on the land, whilst the cost of labour in keeping the pigs is almost prohibitive. At one time there used to be a keen demand for young pigs in the month of August for so-called "shacking" or running on the stubbles. Experience has proved that these pigs pay less frequently under present conditions than they did under the old ones.

The scarcity of vegetable food which usually shows itself in August is now, in September, met to a considerable extent by the plan of the early digging of potatoes. Large quant.i.ties of chats, and sometimes of slightly diseased ones are now cooked and fed to the pigs with a certain proportion of meal. As a rule there is a keen demand for pork in the month of September. Towards the end of the month all pigs should be under shelter at night.

During the last three months of the year there is little variation in the management of pigs. One of the common mistakes made by farmers is to neglect their pigs in the autumn, at the very season when a little extra food is needed, and for which the pigs will give a better return than at almost any time of the year. The early portion of October is one of the best periods for mating the sows, the yelts may be left until the latter part of the month so that their pigs do not arrive until the month of February when the days are lengthening and the sun has more power. It is advisable to have many of the fat pigs ready for market ere the month of November ends, as the demand for pork is usually slack for two or three weeks prior to and after Christmas.

CHAPTER XVII

DISEASES OF THE PIG

Fortunately, the pig is subject to comparatively few serious diseases--save swine fever, swine erysipelas, and very occasionally anthrax, which are contagious or infectious, and all in the special charts of the veterinary department of the Board of Agriculture, and within the contagious Diseases Animals Acts. Prior to the stamping out of Foot and Mouth Disease or apthous fever and rabies, pigs suffered from these contagious and infectious diseases, particularly the former of the two, which caused immense losses, especially of young pigs, during the latter half of the past century.

Of the other ailments to which pig flesh is heir, the majority and the chief of them are mainly due to that want of knowledge or care in the feeding and in the housing of the pigs which renders them more susceptible to the sudden changes in the temperature or to the inclemency of the season. In former chapters some, if not all, of these ailments have been referred to, but it may be more convenient to our readers to include in one chapter a brief description of the ailments and the remedies and means of prevention.

SWINE FEVER

Some thirty years since the losses from this disease were of so serious a nature that the Board of Agriculture determined to attempt to stamp it out, as they had succeeded in stamping out pleura pneumonia in cattle, and foot and mouth disease. The success of their efforts was not at all commensurate with the outlay. The failure was attributed to many causes; amongst them the want of a complete knowledge of the disease, the impossibility of diagnosing it during the life of the patient, the absence of sympathy on the part of the local veterinary surgeons owing to certain steps taken by the then Veterinary Adviser of the Board, to which further reference is now inadvisable, and to the general opposition of pig-keepers who had as little faith in many of the post mortems and their results as in the power of the authorities to stamp out the disease which under various names had been more or less common in the country so long as they could remember. Doubts were also pa.s.sed on the infectivity or contagiousness of swine fever, or as it was variously termed red soldier, spots, etc.

This disbelief was probably due in part to the fact that some of the external symptoms of swine fever, swine erysipelas, and heart disease, such as discoloration of the skin were of a similar character. In some instances this redness of the skin, which was looked upon as a sure sign that the pig had died from swine fever, did not prove to be infectious, as no other cases followed amongst the in-contact pigs. This led to the general belief that swine fever was not necessarily infectious.

Dissatisfaction with the arbitrary manner in which the restrictions in movement, etc., were carried out did not mend matters, nor help to render the efforts of the Board more successful.

At the present time it is imperative on the part of the owner of an ill pig to report the fact to the nearest policeman. The owner then merely carries out the instructions supplied to him by the police so that it is almost unnecessary to state that the symptoms of swine fever are several. At times the attack is of so virulent a nature that a pig may take its food all right in the afternoon and be dead the next morning, no discoloration of the skin or other external symptoms being visible before or immediately after death.

As a rule when the pig is attacked the first symptom is loss of appet.i.te, generally accompanied by a feverish condition of the skin which shows more or fewer red spots behind the shoulder, and inside the thighs, or in those portions of the body where the skin is the thinnest and most free from hair. The great desire of the affected pig is to burrow into the litter and to remain undisturbed, save when the feverish thirst impels it to seek moisture of any sort or kind, even urine which may have settled into any unevenness of the floor of the sty.

Many of the ailing pigs suffer from a dry, husky cough, a gummy discharge exudes from the eyes and forms a ring round them, the ankles become affected, and the muscles of the back become weakened so that the pig has difficulty in walking. The discoloration of the skin may or may not increase, but the weakness gradually becomes greater so that death may follow within a day or two from the first attack. Occasionally the affected pig will continue to live for several days, and eventually recover so much that it can be fatted, but there exists a great risk of the recovered pig being what is termed a "carrier" of the disease, and possessing the ability to infect other pigs with which it may come in close contact, although the germs of the disease which it carries do not affect its own health. Similar instances of human beings being "carriers" of the disease have been recorded. So difficult is it at times to discover the source of the infection of swine fever that certain persons who are not amongst the strongest believers in the practical knowledge of the members of the veterinary profession a.s.sert that swine fever need not necessarily be the result of infection, but that injudicious feeding or the neglect of sanitary arrangements will sometimes cause an outbreak. There does not appear to be the slightest ground for this belief, as there is a specific virus which when it obtains ingress into the body of the pig, whether by the mouth, nose, or in any other way, may result in an attack, more or less severe, of swine fever, unless the virus has become so attenuated that it is unable to affect the host sufficiently. This attenuation, which is due to causes which are probably not completely known, is commonly the cause of the absence of further cases of swine fever amongst one of a lot of pigs which has had a very mild attack. This variation in the virulence of most infectious diseases has been noticed and recorded.

At the present time the Board of Agriculture have suspended the slaughter order in cases where the owner of the pigs desires to inoculate the in-contact pigs with serum which is supplied from the Veterinary College. The experiment has not been in operation sufficiently long enough to express a confident opinion upon its results, but it is stated that in Denmark the inoculation of the pigs which have been in contact with diseased pigs has proved to be a success. The risks of carrying out the experiment are by no means slight, but appear to be worth running if there be any great probability of success.

SWINE ERYSIPELAS

The symptoms of this disease, which fortunately is not so common as swine fever, owing probably to its being more fatal and in a shorter time, are very similar to those of swine fever, save that the husky cough and the weakness of the muscles of the back are generally absent.

The post mortem shows distinctive differences from those of swine fever.

There appears to be far greater difficulty in thoroughly disinfecting the sty in which pigs suffering from erysipelas have been housed than after swine fever cases; not only so, but the virus remains active for a very long period, so that any accident which may expose the virus even after many months may affect any pigs with which it comes in contact.

In an outbreak of swine erysipelas it is advisable to have the unaffected pigs inoculated as well as those housed in a sty or building in which at any time pigs suffering from erysipelas have been housed. A certain limited number may die, and a few suffer for a time, but the total loss will be considerably reduced.

ANTHRAX, FOOT AND MOUTH DISEASE AND RABIES

It may be unnecessary to describe these very infectious or contagious diseases to which pigs are subject, as fortunately the steps taken to stamp them out, and which were much decried when taken by the Board of Agriculture, have proved so successful that the two latter are stamped out, and the first named is so promptly and effectually dealt with that a case of it amongst swine is seldom recorded.

CRAMP, DIARRHA AND EPILEPTIC FITS

These diseases, which are more frequent amongst young pigs, have been fully described in the chapters dealing with the rearing, weaning, and growing of pigs, where it is pointed out that they are all mainly due to faults in feeding, and the simple remedies applicable are there given.