TREATMENT OF YOUNG PIGS.
For the first ten days, or a fortnight, the mother will generally be able to support her litter without assistance, unless, as has been already observed, she is weakly, or her young are too numerous; in either of which cases they must be fed from the first. When the young pigs are about a fortnight old, warm milk should be given to them. In another week, this may be thickened with some species of farina; and afterward, as they gain strength and increase in size, boiled roots and vegetables may be added. As soon as they begin to eat, an open frame or railing should be placed in the sty under which the little pigs can run, and on the other side of this should be the small troughs containing their food; for it never answers to let them eat out of the same trough with their mother, because the food set before her is generally too strong and stimulating for them, even if they should secure any of it, which is, to say the least, extremely doubtful. Those intended to be killed for sucking-pigs should not be above four weeks old; most kill them for this purpose on the twenty-first or twenty-second day. The others, excepting those kept for breeding, should be castrated at the same time.