Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1908-06-23

Practice differs regarding the length
of time the litter should remain with
the mother. II the SOW is to raise two
litters in the year she cannot suckle her
litter for period exceeding six weeks.
However, few breeders require more
than one litter year from the SOW, in
which case she may suckle the young
things, eight, ten or even twelve weeks.
Though a common practice, it is a
poor policy to allow the SOW to wean the
pigs herself. For one thing, the pigs
usually nurse longer, causing too great
drain upon the energies of the SOW.
By this method, too, the pigs are irregu-
lar in their weaving, some nursing long
er than others, from which damage is
almost sure to result to the udder of the
SOW.
1t is preferable for the herdsman to
supervise the weaving of the litters, his
desire being to SO manage that when the
youngsters are to be separated from
their mothers they will experience very
little, if any, shock from the change.
To keep them constantly growing with
out any stop he must have them learn to
eat solid food when with the mother, de-
pending more and more upon ii, and
thus less and less drawing their food
from the mother. To gain this end,
work must be begun when they are
about three weeks old. Partition off a
portion of the pen in such a manner that
the young pigs can enter, but the older
ones cannot. In this separate apart
ment place a small, clean trough, pref
erably metal one, and in it keep sweet
milk (skim milk will do). At this age
the pigs naturally begin to look for some
food, and if not otherwise supplied they
will obtain it from the mothers trough.
The trough of the mother is poor place
for the young pigs to feed, since it is
neither kept sweet nor clean and they are
likely to become secured from eating
from it. But they will soon find their
own trough, learn to eat and to look
there for food. For the first few days
they will not eat any noticeable guam
tity, but within a week they will have
learned TO take food. During this first
week special care must be taken to keep
the trough clean and to keep only fresh,
sweet milk in it. This will necessitate
emptying and cleaning it three times
day.
After the first week they can be fed
regularly, care being taken never TO feed
more than will be eaten within the sue
ceeding half hour. During the fifth or
even the fourth week little meal may
be added to the milk. For this purpose
there is no better meal than ground oats
from which all the hulls have been sift-
ed. A mixture of cornmeal two parts,
oatmeal two parts and oilmeal one part,
added in small quantities and gradually
increasing in amount rs the pig becomes
older, until it forms thick slop, by the
time the pigs are ten weeks old, will be
found very satisfactory. Where ground
oats are available four parts of corn may
be used. The meal should be mixed
with the milk in the proportion of three
to one when they have learned to eat
well. By such a method of manage
ment, at weaving time the pigs can be
removed from the mother without any
appreciable setback.
When weaving, do not shut the young
pigs in pen or barnyard, but let them
have the run of a plenteous pasture,
providing shelter from the hot sun, from
iuclement weather and for sleeping.
After thirty lusty pigs have reached
forty to fifty pounds in weight, the
methods of preparing their food may be
changed. When they were small and
learning to eat, grinding was eminently
necessary, but as they get little larger
the bulk of experimental evidence goes
to show that not only do the pigs prefer
the whole corn, but they also make
greater gains upon it and waste less
food. Soaking improves very hard corn
that is two or more years old.
This is a matter well worth carrying
in mind for summer feeding of young
pigs when the farmer is so very busy.
Give the young things an abundant
pasture, preferably clover; water them,
provide sunshsde, and feed them the
whole shelled corn, soaked or dry, and
economic, satisfactory gains are assured
Professor j. A. Mclean in The Ma
tional Swine Magazine.