The French Broad hustler. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1896-1912, 1905-07-05
A Pig. Hospital.

A Zig. HOSPITAL
correspondent. of The Southern
loura list tell his methods with pigs as
Alows:
NYith a large herd of Berkshlres 1t
necessary to have a hospital where
Won can place those that get hurt or
mood treatment for scours, whooping
cough, constipation and other ailments
that pigs are subject to just as are
members of the human family. The
hospital should have several wards so
that each trouble can be treated after
T. its kind, but in each ward there should
be a low, fiat box kept supplied with
charcoal, ashes. salt and & little lime,
for more pigs are troubled with indi-
gestion just as people, than with any
other trouble and the above prescrlp-
ton is a fine Alternative n does more
10 strengthen and improve the digest
i've organs than anything 1 have ever
tried. Pigs, like some people, will
] sometimes gorge their stomachs and
thereby thWart digestion and be off
their feed" for weeks, hence it is very
important to feed a pig only as much
as he will clean up at once, but he
should be fed -four to six times a day
according to the age and digestion.
Never, under any circumstances, feed
Apigs under ten weeks Of age SOU milk,
nor should their dams have it. for it is
certain to bring on scours. After they
are three months old there is nothing
better for them than milk with white
shorts. Bran is fine for COWS and ma
tured hogs, but not fit for pigs. An
old doctor, and Il mighty good one. who
had retired to his farm, and lived adj
iacent to me, told me ~thirty-flve years
ago that he had found out what gave
pigs the blind ~staggers, set them crazy
and often killed them, and that it was
nothing more than jimpson seed that
they would eat in the fall of the year
after they had finished up the wheat
stubble and succulent bites of clover,
then why let the miserable weed go to
seed? Pull it up by the roots when
the ground is moist, do this every sea-
son for two years and you are done
with it.
Pigs are sometimes farrOwed with
but one opening in rear and that in
tended for the discharge of water but
strange to say that one opening acts
for the discharge of both liquid and
solid, and 1 have had such pigs to be
the finest and most thrifty of the litter,
but of curse they are only fit for the
pork barrel and should never be al
! lowed to mate with the boar.
The first case I eve had of this L
M .L:--15 4h1 -;~ -hiah N roTsVy
handsome one, to a doctor, and his
close observance of such things soon
brought to light the trouble which he
reported very promptly and to which
l responded at once with another pig,
and told him to eat the first one at
my expense. I have a ase of this kind
now, from an imported SOW, by an
imported boar, in the fattening pen,
and he. she or it is the most voracious
''grOwingist' thing you ever saw. 1t
is a common thing for one testicle
only to be visible. I had a case lately
where neither was visible and a decid-
ed depression occurred where there
should have been just the reverse, but
when he was butchered they boti were
formed and fully two inches from
their natural position. Sows are nearly
always bred entirely too young, this
early breeding diminishes the size Of
the dam and also of her progeny. A
sow should never be bred under ten
months of age, and it is much better
to wait until she is twelve months old
and we'll matured, then, and only then,
can you expect to get best results.
This talk about practically starving
q sow for one two or three weeks
just after narrowing is all wrong;
there is none of them that would not
be improved, and their pigs too, by
moderate feeding Of shorts and bran
mixed with greasy water, commencing
eighteen or t~wenty-four hours after
narrowing. A SOW would become so
nervous and ravefous IS to trample
to death and possibly eat her young
if starved as some recommended. Of
course you should commence with one
fourth feed first three days and then
gradually increase it for ten days,
after which time give her all she will
clean up four times a day. After just
two weeks, in cold weather, you can
let her have a moderate ration Of corn
night and morning. About the thifd
week her pigs will begin to nibble at
this. 1 write this from thirty-fve
years experience. I have told you
before in this paper how to get the
pigs to eat mush at about four weeks
OF age.