RAISING PIGS
When I was nine years old I laid the foundation of my college fund. My grandmother had a flock of twenty or thirty geese which were kept for the pillows and feather beds they filled. Great was my delight when grandma told me that she would give me a pig if I would help her pick the geese. Helping her would have been reward enough, for I was a great grandma girl, but the ambition of my childhood was to own a pig. Did not my elder brother now own a beautiful mare and colt, and had he not started with a pig?
Wednesday was the day set for plucking the geese and all my leisure on Monday and Tuesday was spent in building a pen. Plenty of material from which to construct this edifice was found about the place. I wisely located it at the back of the henhouse which left me only three sides to build. One corner was roofed with the best boards I could find, for I didn't wish my precious pig to suffer from sunstroke or have his bed transformed into a mud-hole when it rained.
When the geese were picked to the last feather they could spare, I went with grandmother to select my pig from the litter of sucklings now ready to begin taking their food from the trough. She generously allowed me my choice, and if I did not get the pick of the bunch it was not her fault. I wonder how a girl of nine succeeded in transporting a lusty pig the three quarters of a mile between grandmother's house and ours. I should not like to undertake it now, but my confidence in my ability to do what I wanted done in those days was unlimited. A piece of rope, a stout cudgel, a pair of strong, young arms, and a high disregard of appearances sustained me. I got my treasure home and into his pen—no mean triumph even as viewed by my elder brother who had passed by the pig stage and even the calf stage and entered into the exalted realm of horse ownership.
My father was not the "your shoat, my hog" kind of a father. There came a time when he used to say that the girls owned all the cattle and the boys all the horses on the farm. When my pig grew up, I traded it to my father for a fine calf. This calf was the nucleus of my "herd," for I never owned a horse. All through my college course when I needed money, I used to write to father to sell "Rowena" or "Corinne" or "Natty Bumpo." (We named our calves after the people we read about.) There was always a buyer ready at hand and the price paid was strictly in accord with the market quotations. The cow which bought my graduation cap and gown was the last of her race, "Betsy Bobbett," one of the great-great-granddaughters of the calf for which I traded that original pig.
No one can deny or doubt that there is profit in pig raising. Pork "on the hoof" is ten cents a pound even as I write these words, with prospects good for going higher. A profit of one hundred per cent. is recorded by growers when the price is only six cents a pound.
With the one exception of poultry, hogs bring the quickest returns for investment of any live stock. It is poor economy to keep any animal which cannot pay its board, except for sentiment, and few people keep pigs on that account. If I were beginning again I should not trade my pig for a calf but should raise pigs.
In selecting a mother for my family of hogs I should care more about her individual character than about her breed. A good brood sow ought to have a good disposition, which means a good digestion, and respond quickly to kindness. Nervous, irritable sows often develop vicious habits. A short, broad face, a wide space between the eyes, a deep chest, broad back, and large hams with rather short legs are all considered good points. A good-natured, healthy pig has a bright, friendly manner when accosted and a look of shrewd though guileless interest in his master.
"Dirty as a pig" is a slander on the pig and a censure on its owner. Pigs and goats are more particular about their beds than either horses or cows. Success with porkers is spelt c-l-e-a-n-l-i-n-e-s-s. They like to wallow in the edge of a sluggish stream on a warm day. Well, so do you. Mud is not dirty unless mixed with foul manure and decaying vegetable matter.
All feeding troughs, floors, and beds should be thoroughly scraped, swept, and dried if the pigs are to be healthy, happy, and comfortable. Under no other conditions does keeping pigs pay.
You will be very fortunate if your young sow's first litter numbers ten or a dozen lively youngsters. Six or eight will not be bad if she raises them all, and with care she ought to. Improper care and feeding before the pigs come are usually responsible for any cannibalistic habits developed by the sow. Corn alone is not a good ration except for fattening. Used with wheat, middlings, bran, and ground oats, with plenty of clover or alfalfa hay, corn is all right. The sow should be put into a pen by herself before farrowing time. The best bedding is clean wheat or rye straw, which should not be left until it is wet and filthy. Sprinkle air-slaked lime in the sleeping pen under the fresh bedding. A sick pig means a neglectful owner.
Pigs ought to grow fast and without any check. At six months old they should weigh two hundred pounds, an average gain you see, of over a pound a day. With a good, healthy mother little pigs need no extra feeding the first month. The sow should be given nourishing food, bran and ground oats and rye, lots of skim-milk and an abundance of clean, fresh water.
If the pigs seem hungry when only a couple of weeks old a little, new trough should be made for them. A small quantity of boiled corn and skim-milk should be put into this trough where the little fellows can get to it but the sow cannot. They may not take much at first, but several hours later the trough should be rinsed and a fresh supply given. Sour, dirty milk may produce serious sickness in young pigs and check growth. The sow will wean them when she gets ready, and they will not know the difference if they get used to their trough early.
It is possible to raise and fatten pigs in pens, but it is not economical. Pasture is essential to their best growth. It gives them exercise, and the green food not only nourishes them, but aids in the digestion of the more concentrated foods. The expression, "Pigs in clover," is based on fact. A happy, healthy, money-maker is the pasture-fed pig. He will put on his ten cents' worth a day of bone, muscle and fat at less expense in a clover patch than elsewhere. Alfalfa or cow peas will serve him about as well. Fruit windfalls are good for him, too.
If you live on a place where grain or fruit are the main crops and a few cows are kept, you are losing a great opportunity if you are not raising a few pigs. They dispose of the surplus on such farms, as well as the unsalable garden crops and weeds, and pay their board day by day.
The owner should keep a close account with his pigs. If they eat what would otherwise be wasted you are so much to the good. What you sell them for, less what you have paid out for food, equals what you get for your time.