The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1880-07-02
Swine In Summer.

Ncurc HOW VerSiLB upOu suiHlucT, itnu
one OF the questions not yet settled to
the satisfaction of everybody. How to
manage swine best during the hot wealth
err? We have had great deal of ex-
perience in raising swine, breeding, rear
ing, and fattening, and it has been a
reasonably successful experience. We
therefore conclude that, while there may
be a good ways of summer management
other than ours, our success stamps our
way as one that is good, and, as it is the
cheapest of all the ways suggested, it has
that important merit to recommend it.
We never fed old corn in the mid-sum-
mcr and never should, unless we were
going to fatten before winter. As soon
as pasture is ready we should turn the
hogs i'll and let the pasture carry them
through, until growing corn is ready to
feed them, which it will do handsomely.
But the pasture should not be crowded;
that is, it should be allowed to get good
start before any stock, and hogs espe-
cially, are turned into it. Great loss re-
suits from treading down the young ten
der plants before they have fully estab-
lished themselves. But, when far enough
advanced, all that il necessary for hogs,
in addition to the pasture, are salt and
plenty of water. We would salt ut least
once day. Grain is worse than useless,
or perhaps better expression would be
that it is not needed, and feeding it is not
only waste, but in one sense it is in
furious. If the animal has nothing but
the pasture to depend upon, it will de-
pend upon it, and do well; but where
grain is fed, the animal looks for it, and
it will not depend so much or do so well
upon the pasture.
1t seems scarcely necessary to suggest
that shade is necessary, and yet hogs are
not always provided with it. 1t is down.
right cruelty to expose hog to the
burning suns of the summer day,
especially when shelter from the heat
can be cheaply provided in so many ways.
provide some place where the animal
can retire in the heat of the day. 1t will
do better by very large per cent. than if
no shelter is provided. From the nature
of the hog, it suffers greatly from the
heat, even when not i'll the condition
which we call fat. 1t always has more
or less fat about it. 1t is natural for it
to lay ON fat, and even when it is not
getting what are classed rs fat-producing
food as compared with other animals it
is at; and the confirming ii during the
summer to grass is partly for the pur-
pose of creating as little fat as possible,
and building up foundation for pork in
the winter. But do the best we can, and
still there will be enough fat about the
animal to cause it to suffer greatly when
exposed to the heat.
Some provision should also be made
for it to wallow. Very often the belief
prevails that it is the love of the hog for
The hog does not love filth; it is in fact
of the cleanest animals in existence, If it
has chance to he. The reason that the
hog seems filthy is because the owner is
filthy. The animal is kept and fed in
dirt, and TO expect it to shun it when it
cannot get away from it is an absurdity,
and is laying the blame where it does not
belong. But mud in the strict meaning
Of the term is not filth; and when used
by the hog is the animals method of TAX
ing bath. The skin becomes hot and
itchy, aud is frequently covered with a
dandruff-like substance. In wallOwing,
the mud acts incidentally, and when
dried and rubbed off either by scratch
ing or lying down, the skins surface is
cleansed.
In our management of swine or other
animals, we feel that we cannot impress
the fact too deeply that, the more we re-
gard the laws of their natures and the
more contented we make them, the bet
ter the results will be. An uneasy, fret
full, nervous animal cannot do as well rs
one that is contented and always calm.
We learn this fact from our own EXPERT
ence as human beings. When we fret
we do not digest well or sleep we'll.
There is a strain upon the machinery
which is unnatural. So it is with the
domestic animal, and when we seek to
make the hog "happy," we are ON the
right toward making it do WE'LL West
'rn Rural.