The ranch. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1902-1914, 1909-08-15
YOUNG PIG MANAGEMENT

A hog is half made when past the
weaving period without stunt or
kink in its growth. Every check or
halt in prosperity through its first two
months is more expensive than at any
later period. Too much rich, feverish
milk of the dam, causing thumps or
other ailment, may leave harmful re-
suits, perhaps as much SO as scant
feeding or other neglect of the SOW
More injury may be done to a pigs
growth in two or three days than can
be repaired in a month, even if he is
made the subject of special care, which
where many are raised is not the rule
nor easily practicable. Good luck"
with pigs calls for attention, and that
not occasional, but frequent and regu-
lar.
From the first week after narrowing
until weaving time, the SOW will be
little else than a milking machine,
and to be high-power machine in per-
feet operation she must have proper
care Nothing else is so we'll calculat-
ed to make pigs grow as bountiful
supply of wholesome sow's milk, and
the pigs that have plenty of other feed
for eight weeks will ordinarily have
much the start of those weaned at
five or six weeks, no matter how much
food and attention the earlier weaned
pigs may have had.
At eight or nine weeks old most
pigs are, or rather should be, tit to
take away from the SOW; some filters
are individually older at seven weeks
than others at ten, and better fitted
for weaving. Sometimes it is neces-
sary to wean when the pigs are five
or six weeks old, and in other cases
it may be advisable to wait until the
pigs are ten weeks or even older. In
the corn belt the period will generally
average longer than in New England.
Breeders who wean at early ages gen.
orally do so in order to more profitably
raise two filters a year.
Provided with, and taught to eat,
suitable feed some weeks beforehand,
pigs are not nOticeably checked in
their growth by weaving, but those
that have been dependent mainly upon
the mothers milk, when abruptly TAX
en- away from it, frequently seem to
have their growth partially suspended
for weeks. Many breeders success
fully let the SOW wean her pigs. as
she will in time, and the change is so
gradual that no pause in growth 1nd1-
Gates when the milk diet ceased A
modified application of this, in which
the pigs are separated from the SOW
at an age suiting their feeding and the
convenience of the breeder, will not
infrequently be found advisable, but
by no means should the pigs be al
lowed to remain with a SOW until she
is virtually devoured by them as Is
sometimes done.
1t is not "a good plan to take all the
pigs from the SOW unless one or two
of them can be turned with her some
hours after, to draw the milk she will
have at that time, and again, say after
lapse of "a hours. The preferred
way is to leave about two of the small
lest with her for several days. and
after that leave only one for two or
three days more, by which time the
flow of milk will have been so gradu-
ally diminished that no injury to the
SOW will result by keeping them en-
tirely away from her. This extra sup
ply of milk helps also to push the
smaller pgs along growth and put
them more nearly on an equality in
size with their thriftier mates.-From
Coburn's Swine in America.