PIGGERIES.
Few items conduce more to the thriving and well-being of swine than airy, spacious, well-constructed styes, and above all, cleanliness. They were formerly too often housed in damp, dirty, close, and imperfectly-built sheds, which was a fruitful source of disease and of unthrifty animals. Any place was once thought good enough to keep a pig in.
In large establishments, where numerous pigs are kept, there should be divisions appropriated to all the different kinds; the boars, the breeding sows, the newly weaned, and the fattening pigs should all be kept separate; and in the divisions assigned to the second and last of these classes, it is best to have a distinct apartment for each animal, all opening into a yard or inclosure of limited extent. As pigs require warmth, these buildings should face the south, and be kept weather-tight and well drained. Good ventilation is also important; for it is idle to expect animals to make good flesh and retain their health, unless they have a sufficiency of pure air. The blood requires this to give it vitality and free it from impurities, as much as the stomach requires wholesome and strengthening food; and when it does not have it, it becomes vitiated, and impairs all the animal functions. Bad smells and exhalations, moreover, injure the flavor of the meat.
Damp and cold floors should be guarded against, as they tend to induce cramp and diarrhœa; and the roof should be so contrived as to carry off the wet from the pigs. The walls of a well-constructed sty should be of solid masonry; the roof sloping, and furnished with spouts to carry off the rain; the floors either slightly inclined toward a gutter made to carry off the rain, or else raised from the ground on beams or joists, and perforated so that all urine and moisture shall drain off. Bricks and tiles, sometimes used for flooring, are objectionable, because, however well covered with straw, they still strike cold. Wood is far superior in this respect, as well as because it admits of those clefts or perforations being made, which serve not only to drain off all moisture, but also to admit fresh air.
The manure proceeding from the pig-sty has often been much undervalued, and for this reason, that the litter is supposed to form the principal portion of it; whereas it constitutes the least valuable part, and, indeed, it can scarcely be regarded as manure at all—at least by itself—where the requisite attention is paid to the cleanliness of the animals and of their dwellings. The urine and the dung are valuable, being, from the very nature of the food of the animals, exceedingly rich and oleaginous, and materially beneficial to cold soils and grass-lands. The manure from the sty should always be collected as carefully as that from the stable or cow-house, and husbanded in the same way.
The door of each sty ought to be so hung that it will open inward or outward, so as to give the animals free ingress and egress. For this purpose, it should be hung across from side to side, and the animal can push it up to effect its entry or exit; for, if it were hung in the ordinary way, it would derange the litter every time it opened inward, and be very liable to hitch. If it is not intended that the pigs shall leave their sty, there should be an upper and lower door; the former of which should always be left open when the weather is warm and dry, while the latter will serve to confine the animal. There should likewise be windows or slides, which can be opened or closed at will, to give admission to the fresh air, or exclude rain or cold.
Wherever it can be managed, the troughs—which should be of stone or cast metal, since wooden ones will soon be gnawed to pieces—should be so situated that they can be filled and cleaned from the outside, without interfering with or disturbing the animals at all; and for this purpose it is well to have a flap, or door, with swinging hinges, made to hang horizontally on the trough, so that it can be moved to and fro, and alternately be fastened by a bolt to the inside or outside of the manger. When the hogs have fed sufficiently, the door is swung inward and fastened, and so remains until feeding-time, when the trough is cleansed and refilled without any trouble, and then the flap drawn back, and the animals admitted to their food. Some cover the trough with a lid having as many holes in it as there are pigs to eat from it, which gives each pig an opportunity of selecting his own hole, and eating away without interfering with or incommoding his neighbor.
A hog ought to have three apartments, one each for sleeping, eating, and evacuations; of which the last may occupy the lowest, and the first the highest level, so that nothing shall be drained, and as little carried into the first two as possible. The piggery should always be built as near as possible to that portion of the establishment from which the chief part of the provision is to come, since much labor will thus be saved. Washings, and combings, and brushings, as has been previously suggested, are valuable adjuncts in the treatment of swine; the energies of the skin are thus roused, the pores opened, the healthful functions aided, and that inertness, so likely to be engendered by the lazy life of a fattening pig, counteracted.
A supply of fresh water is essential to the well-being of swine, and should be freely furnished. If a stream can be brought through the piggery, it answers better than any thing else. Swine are dirty feeders and dirty drinkers, usually plunging their fore-feet into the trough or pail, and thus polluting with mud or dirt whatever may be given to them. One of the advantages, therefore, to be derived from the stream of running water is, its being kept constantly clean and wholesome by its running. If this advantage cannot be procured, it is desirable to present water in vessels of a size to receive but one head at a time, and of such height as to render it impossible, or difficult, for the drinker to get his feet into it. The water should be renewed twice daily. If swine are closely confined in pens, they should have as much charcoal twice a week as they will eat, for the purpose of correcting any tendency to disorders of the stomach. Rotten wood is an imperfect substitute for charcoal.