Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1886-04-29
HOG Evils.
How Many Troublesome Swine Diseases
Could he Avoided.

UUO0 SVBeS0
How Many Troublesome SWINE Diseases
Could BE Avoided.
While the Department Of Agriculture
Is making investigations to determine
the nature of hog cholera and how it
may be cured or prevented. what shall
the farmers do? My advice is to do any
thing to give tone and strength to the
swine.
l do not think that any kind of food
will save hogs from taking contagious
or infectious disease, neither do l be-
lieve that hog cholera is divine dis
pensation on the just and unjust, and
nothing is to be done but to submit. I
am satisfied that the modes of feeding.
breeding and care do have a great deal
to do with the origin and spread of all
diseases. Hog cholera must have trav-
eled very fast to have broken out over
such wide range of country and in so
many remote places, if it originates
only by infection. This is one of the
mysteries, and it is to be hoped that the
real cause of it may be found out. tits
matter which interests everybody. I
am glad to know that Prof Salmon, the
capable head of the Bureau of Animal
Industry, is prosecuting experiments as
fast and as thorough as possible to find
out the cause and remedy.
Now, about breeders and pork makers.
There is too much launching" of hogs.
1t would be wise thing to do, if every
man who is in the hog business, should
n In hSS, shpvvN h
them in smaller lots, az small as posi-
BILE. There is no doubt but this change
in the common system would result in
greater healthfulness, and tend to ward
Oft disease. Excessive members always
invites disease and once started, what
ever it may be, it is very hard to eradi-
cate it. Keeping hogs on the same
ground year after year, without any
turning up of the fresh soil, and requir-
ing hogs to live in their own filth and
drOppings and to pick their food out of
their disease-gathering surroundings.
is a too common custom, and, it has not
one ray ofsense or good judgment in it.
1t is wide door always open to court
disease. The boar should be changed
every year and new blood obtained.
Farmers could exchange bears to adj
vantage. taking care to have them not
akin.
There has been great change in the
summering of hogs, as many farmers
have at last got it into their heads that
grass is good for hogs and they were
made to eat something besides corn.
Every hog in the proper season should
be kept on the ground and that ground
should be covered with grass or clover,
and in some accessible place there
should be pure water for the hogs to
drink. This does not mean slough
hole or the spot where there is more
mud than water. A shallow trough
with Stats across to keep the pigs out is
the best place to water hogs in, as no
infection comes and goes.
A windmill and tank from which .
supply of water could flow pumped
from mill, is the climax of perfection
in watering stock; unless there are nat
ural springs from which it can be con-
Quoted.
The water which animals drink is
more important than most people imag-
inc. 1t will often speedily make them
sick, or it may make health and vigor.
If it is foul it will always cause derange-
ment and disease. Farmers wonder
why their stock do not do well, when
the cause is right before their eyes
and in their nose.
The waste in hog manure is very
great all over the country. The place
for hogs is in field, and after they
have remained there long enough they
should be changed to another and q
fresh one. There is no land that hogs
will not make richer. How much more
sensible and human it is to keep the
hogs out in the fields where they will do
good to themselves and the land, and
gather a good part of their living and
he healthy, and so save loss. than to
lunch them in a small field near the
house and make a nuisance to people |
who consider stencil and the place
where it comes from as decidedly un-
Pleasant. Certainly such surroundings
10 not add to any premises in an Orna-
Rental sense, nor do they elevate the
tone of the family. Give the pigs a
saed to lie under, on the dryest ground;
3 this will add to their comfort, and |
uomfort means gain, and gain profit.
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