Lard Breeds
7. Poland China
Poland China. The Poland China is one of the most popular breeds. It is of medium size, black in color with “six white points” on face, tail and feet. Its ears are not erect as are those of the Berkshire, but break and fall forward about two-thirds of the length from the head. The face is not dished as much as that of the Berkshire, another mark of distinction.
Like all of the rest of the lard breeds, it should have heavy shoulders and hind quarters, and deep, short sides. For a time there was a demand upon the part of breeders for small, fine-boned animals. The demand of the packers was too strong, however, and the development of the Big Type Poland China marked the downfall of this “fad.”
This breed is noted for its constitution and vigor. Much of this is due, no doubt, to the fact that the originators of the breed in the Miami Valley wished to develop a hog which could be driven to Cincinnati, the great packing center of that period. The small type Poland China had small litters. This fault has been remedied in the big type strains.
8. Berkshire
The Berkshire. The erect ears, dished face and short snout of the Berkshire distinguish it quite sharply from the Poland China. It is one of the oldest breeds of swine, originating in Berkshire, a county of England. The early Berkshire was a bacon, not a lard hog. It was large, rough, and late maturing. Numerous crosses with Chinese and Neopolitan pigs of fine quality have been instrumental in producing the modern, medium sized, compact animal.
This breed has a broad back, a good spring of rib and thick rump and hams. Berkshires are early maturing and breeders claim that the meat is second in quality to none. Like the Poland China, it has white on the feet, face and tip of tail.
9. Duroc-Jersey
Duroc-Jersey. This breed of red hog is becoming very popular on account of its constitution and ability to produce large litters. It resembles the Poland China in size, shape and position of ear and snout. The color desired by most breeders is a cherry and not a sandy red.
Nothing definite is known of its early history. Red hogs had often been imported. Among the records of such importations are those of Henry Clay from Spain and Daniel Webster from Portugal. Early Berkshires of red color were thought to have been used in developing the breed.
Two breeds, a Jersey Red in New Jersey and a Duroc in New York State, came into prominence. The former was a coarse hog of good length of body and strong constitution. The union of these two breeds produced the Duroc-Jersey.
Another point which especially recommends this breed in addition to those already mentioned is its grazing ability.
10. Chester White
The Chester White. This breed of white hog resembles the Poland China. The ears are more drooping, however, than those of that breed and break forward about one-third the distance from the head. The Chester White is also wider, thicker and longer in body.
The breed originated in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Two other strains, Todd’s Improved Chester White and the Ohio Improved Chester White, have resulted from breed improvement. The latter has now developed its own breed association.
The Chester White ranks second to Duroc-Jerseys in the size of its litters, but the fact that its white color makes it subject to sunburn prevents its development in the southern and middle western states.
The Hampshire. This breed is classed as between the fat and bacon-types. This is due to a lighter shoulder and ham and a longer side with less depth than those of the breeds previously described. Although it will not meet the demands of the “Wiltshire side” for the English market, it will provide bacon which meets the demands of the American market.
11. Hampshire
The Hampshire is a black hog with a belt of white from 4 to 12 inches in width encircling the body and including the forelegs. It is more upstanding than the lard-type breeds, and has a broad and fairly deep body. A narrow head with close set ears extending forward but not breaking are other marks of distinction. The Hampshire matures early, has good sized litters, and is a good grazer. The proportion of fat to lean meat is very desirable. Little is known of its early history other than that it originated in Hampshire, England, and that representatives were brought to Kentucky at an early date.
Selecting the pigs. In choosing a breed a club member will do well to select the one which is most prevalent in his community, provided, of course, that it is a breed which meets the market requirements and in other ways is adapted to local conditions. This will be the case if he lives in a community of successful swine breeders.
Getting started. After a breed has been decided upon, the next thing is to pick out the individuals. A pig club member may start with a pig or pigs after weaning, or a bred gilt may be purchased.
Wherever possible a pure-bred sow pig or gilt should be secured. Two things are to be considered, the pedigree and individuality of the animal. Unless you are familiar with pedigrees, it is best to leave that to the reliable breeder with whom you are dealing. Every pig club member, however, should be able to pick out a good pig.
Four things should be considered in selecting a breeding animal: form, quality, constitution, sex character and type. It is true that the matter is more difficult with a young pig than with an older pig, but part or all of these conditions may be noted in the young pig.
A pig with a comparatively long body and with good depth and width should be selected. It should stand squarely on short legs of good bone. There should be no wrinkles on the body.
A good heart girth indicates plenty of room for the lungs and denotes a strong constitution. Quality is shown in fineness of bone and hair. Too fine a bone should be avoided. To judge type one must be familiar with the requirements of the various breeds. Above all, the pig selected should be a good feeder.
Care and management. After the pig or pigs are secured, the next problem is one of care and management. Every pig club member should keep in mind that pigs require a variety of clean food, clean water, exercise and, a clean bed if they are to thrive and be profitable. Being a large feeder the pig will eat dirty food from a dirty trough if no other is offered. On this account it is often thought that he will get along under any sort of circumstances. Such is not the case. No animal will respond more quickly to careful, intelligent treatment than the pig.
14. A Good Hog House
Houses. Hogs must be housed in dry, warm, clean, and well-ventilated houses. Sunshine is a very important agent in disinfecting and warming the hog house. The well-established breeder may have a colony house, but for the beginner the individual house of the A or square type is to be recommended.
During the summer a good pasture will provide cheap, clean feed, exercise and a clean bed. It may be necessary, however, to provide a shelter from the direct rays of the sun. This may be furnished by a frame of poles covered with straw or corn stalks.
Sanitation. It is much easier to keep a pig healthy than it is to cure him after he becomes sick. Cleanliness, proper feed, disinfection of houses and animals, together with plenty of sunlight, ventilation and dryness of quarters, will help to keep a pig in good health.
If care is taken that there are no unnecessary cracks or corners in which filth may accumulate, it will be easy to keep houses, troughs and feeding floors sanitary. A good disinfectant should be used regularly in the pens. Five parts of crude carbolic acid in one hundred parts of water is recommended. All filth should be removed before the disinfectant is applied. Once a year all buildings should be whitewashed. A pint of crude carbolic acid should be added to each three gallons of whitewash.
Feed lots and pastures cannot be disinfected in this fashion, but applications of lime and an occasional plowing will help.
Hog wallows and dips. The pig is not naturally a filthy animal, and if given an opportunity will keep fairly clean. During the extreme heat of summer the pig suffers, owing to the fact that he perspires but little. He seeks the shelter of a cool mud wallow to get relief from heat and parasites. The intelligent hog raiser will provide a concrete wallow and keep it filled with eight or ten inches of water. Coal-tar or crude oil added to the water helps to rid the animal of lice. Where the animals are badly infested with lice it will be necessary to wet them all over, as the lice are found behind the ears, inside of the legs and in the folds of the skin. A two per cent solution of creolin may be used for this purpose.
Worms. Pigs are often affected with worms which interfere with their thriftiness. A tablespoonful of castor oil and forty drops of oil of American wormseed should be given in the slop to wormy pigs. Six grains of santonin and four grains of calomel per 100 pound pig is also used successfully.
Hog cholera. It is not possible within the scope of a small book to describe all of the diseases that attack pigs. Every pig club member, however, should know something about hog cholera, the greatest scourge which attacks swine.
The germs of hog cholera may be carried on the boots of visitors, by pigeons or dogs. It can only be combatted by vaccination of healthy hogs, quarantining of all sick hogs, burning of all dead hogs and disinfection of premises.
Three methods of vaccination are in use:
(1) The injection of an anti-cholera serum, which makes the hog immune only a few months or weeks.
(2) The simultaneous treatment whereby the serum used in (1) and the defibrinated blood or virus from a diseased hog are injected together. This treatment renders the hog immune for life.
(3) In the combination method, serum alone is used first, and ten days later the simultaneous treatment is administered. This method is seldom used. The services of a skilled veterinarian should be secured to vaccinate hogs.
Feeds and feeding. Protein, fats, and carbohydrates are the three classes of nutrients found in feeds. These, in addition to mineral matter and water, furnish material for the maintenance and growth of the pig. Proteins furnish the material for the production of muscle. Fats and carbohydrates provide fuel for heating the body and giving activity to the muscles. An excess of food nutrients, especially fats and carbohydrates, is stored in the body as fat. The mineral matter goes into the production of bone.
All feeds do not contain these nutrients in the same proportions. Some feeds, like corn, are deficient in protein, while others, like tankage, contain a large percentage of protein.
15. A Self-Feeder
From the foregoing it is easily seen that the problem of the hog raiser is to use a combination of feeds which will provide the proper proportions of the various nutrients. While the pigs are young, bone and muscle producing foods are especially necessary. Toward maturity the percentage of fat producing foods may be increased.
Corn, pasture and other supplements. Corn is the most widely used feed for pigs. As has been stated, it is essentially a fat producing food and must be properly supplemented. Clover or alfalfa pasture supplies the protein and part of the mineral matter which the corn lacks. Rape furnishes good pasture for hogs, almost equal to clover and alfalfa. Rye, blue grass, cow peas and soy beans together with various pasture mixtures have value as hog pastures. Where pigs are fed in a dry lot, tankage may be used to supply the protein. Pasture-fed pigs are thriftier and make cheaper gains than those fed in a dry lot. Skim-milk or buttermilk together with tankage makes an ideal supplement to corn. Middlings and shorts may also be used.
Mineral matter. To insure pigs getting enough mineral matter it is recommended that the following mixture be kept before them at all times:[7]
| Wood ashes or coal screenings | 1 bushel |
| Air-slaked lime | 8 quarts |
| Salt | 8 quarts |
| Rock phosphate | 3 quarts |
| Copperas (iron sulphate) | 1 quart |
The first four ingredients should be mixed thoroughly and the copperas dissolved in warm water and poured over the mixture.
Feeding and care of the sow. In starting in the swine industry with one or more gilts, it should be borne in mind that a sow should not be bred until she is eight or ten months of age. Every hog raiser should aim to have his sows produce two litters a year, farrowing in April and October.
Not more than two-thirds of the grain ration should be corn. Some feeders prefer to use ground oats and middlings exclusively. In any event, heating and fattening foods should be avoided. In addition to the grain ration, roots and clover or alfalfa hay or skim-milk should be fed. Sows on good pasture require little grain except just before farrowing.
At farrowing time the sow should be placed in a building, dry, free from draughts, and well-ventilated.
The feed after farrowing should be about the same as before. After the first week larger quantities are necessary for the sow in order to maintain the pigs properly. When the pigs are weaned, the feed of the sow should be cut down to check the flow of milk. Oats is recommended for that purpose.
Feeding the pigs. The young pigs will learn to eat at about three weeks of age. At this time if the pigs can be fed separately from the sow better results will be obtained. Skim-milk, middlings and soaked corn are recommended.
Young pigs should be given opportunity for exercise but should be sheltered from cold winds or hot sun. Young pigs may be weaned at from 8 to 10 weeks. Avoid too heavy feeding at first.
Pasture-fed pigs may be given one-fourth of a pound of tankage, or one and one-half to two pounds of skim-milk or buttermilk per day; one-half pound of middlings may be added to the above ration. Adding bran or finely ground oats to the middlings will prevent constipation in case the middlings are too fine and floury.
What corn is readily cleaned up may be fed at the age of three months or a little earlier if skim-milk is being fed. The pigs should be fed four times a day at first and then three times. As the pigs grow older the corn and middlings may be increased, but at no time should corn alone be fed.
Markets. The successful stock man is the one who is familiar with market requirements and tries to meet them. Every pig club member should know something of the market classes and grades of hogs. These differ somewhat according to local conditions, but in a general way the classification used on the Chicago market may be taken as a standard.
Heavy hogs are no longer at a premium except when the price of lard is high. They contain a large amount of fat. The various grades of hogs in the several classes indicate the degree to which they have attained to the standard of perfection, prime being the highest grade, and common and inferior the lowest grades.
Butcher hogs are commonly used for fresh meat trade. They are principally barrows.
The term packing refers to the use to which this class of hogs is commonly put. They are inferior to butcher hogs and are cut up, cured, and packed in boxes and barrels. Mixed packing hogs are those marketed without grading. Speculators often buy them up and grade them.
The meat of pigs is unsuitable for curing and supplies part of the demand for cheap, fresh meat.
Bacon hogs quoted on the Chicago market are not the bacon hogs which furnish the Wiltshire sides. They are lard hogs that are not highly finished, have a high per cent of lean meat, and supply the demand for lean pork.
Stags are males castrated too late in life to grade as barrows. Boars are used for sausage and supply cheap fresh meat.
The present demand is for hogs weighing from 200 to 250 pounds, and the hog raiser should aim to finish and market his hogs at about these weights.