The Van Buren press. [volume] (Van Buren, Ark.) 1859-1914, 1898-04-02
FARMER AND PLANTER.
THE HOG PEN.
Keep the Hogs Comfortable If You Desire
Good Results.


The main thing is, make your hog
comfortable by giving him nice, clean
sleeping quarters under cover, SO it
will be dry. Give him straw and he
will make his own bed. | like dirt
floors best, and fill up the holes or UNI
even places with clay, as there is not
so much dust Then you want a plank
feed will not be trampled in the dirt.
You also want your feeding platform a
little slanting, so the rain will keep it
washed off. Keep the manure and
trash cleaned out and sprinkled with
ashes or Stacked lime. A friend of
mine told me last summer good way
to rid the hogs of vermin, as well as
have the hogs cool. Take some plank
and make box about the size
of wagonbed, bury it about
half in the ground. Then fill
about two-thirds full of water.
On this pour five gallons of coal oil,
with some other cheap oils. The oil
floats to the top, and the hog will take
bath and be well oiled when he comes
out, which will kill that great hog
pest, the louise.
Plenty of clean water is very essen
tial to u hog in fattening him in the
summer time, as well as plenty of
shade.
The narrowing pens should be away
some distance from your other hogs, so
the sow may be as quiet and undis-
turbed as possible. The more SOW
with young pigs gets up, the more pigs
are trampled or overlaid. Be sure you
know about when your SOW is due to
farrow, and put her by herself in a
pen with a shed, that she can make
her bed, and be sure and provide her
with good bedding few days before
time. Supply her with fresh bedding
ard clean out all the old, and sprinkle
with ashes or slal1ed lime every few
days. Notice that the water doesn't
run into your pigs bed If it does, and
they sleep in a wet place "a few days,
good-by piggie, for part of them may
die, and if not some of them may have
their tails to crack and come off The
little fellows need plenty of exercise
and sunshine, as well as feed, to make
them grow.
like to have my lots and pens moved
every year when practicable, so as to
enrich as much ground as possible.
l will tell you how to make eonven-
lent, movable fence: Go to the mills and
get oak lumber when you can; if not,
pick out as much heart-pine as you can
find of 1X4 inch, and in as long lengths
as you can get; now make these into
panels of about three feet high by nail
ing pieces across ends and in middle.
Set up your panel, drive a post at each
end and wire to posts Put on an
| other panel, until you have the desired
size. For making hog fences where
you have three or four barbed wires,
make your panels with three planks
and wire to posts. If you should wish
to use another lot or field, you can
take this off and move in a short time.
| By using these movable panel fences
you use great deal of pasture and
| have it fresh for your stock, and in
| this way you need not have so much
| fencing not in use. l am great advo-
cate of the hog having plenty of room
and fresh quarters. We would not
| think of trying to raise horses and cat
tie without pasture, but will confine
the hogs to pen to raise him, which
can be done successfully when there is
plenty of milk and Stops to feed.
Now, | have jumped out of the lot
into the pasture, as sometimes the hog
will do, when kept in the same place
too long. l have told you nothing new
but hope it will put you to thinking
how to keep the pen contented.-C. W..
Thomas, at the Texas Swine Breeders
Association Meeting.