HOG HOUSES
(Adapted from Bulletin No. 109.
Illinois Experiment Station.)
Fig. 68—Individual
hog house.
Individual Houses.—Individual hog houses, or “cots,” as they are sometimes called, are built in many different ways. Some are built with four upright walls and a shed roof, each of which (the walls and roof) being a separate piece can easily be taken down and replaced, making the moving of these small houses to another location an easy matter. Others are built with two sides sloping in towards the top so as to form the roof, as shown in Fig. 68. These are built on skids and when necessary can be moved as a whole by being drawn by a horse. They are built in several different styles: some have a window in the front end above the door, while all may have a small door in the rear end, near the apex, for ventilating purposes. These houses are built in different sizes; indeed, there are about as many different forms of cots as there are individuals using them.
The arguments in favor of this type of house for swine are that each sow at farrowing time may be kept alone and away from all disturbance; that each litter of pigs may be kept and fed by itself, consequently there will not be too large a number of pigs in a common lot; that these houses may be placed at the farther end of the feed lot, thus compelling the sow and pigs to take exercise, especially in winter, when they come to the feed trough at the front end of the lot; that the danger of spreading disease among a herd is at a minimum; and in case the place occupied by the cot becomes unsanitary it may be removed to a clean location.
Large Houses.—Individual hog houses have certain advantages in their favor, and large houses, if properly planned and built, have many points of advantage; among them being good sanitation, serviceability, safety in farrowing, ease in handling hogs, and large pastures involving little expense for fences. In order to be sanitary a hog house should admit the direct rays of the sun to the floor of all the pens and exclude cold drafts in winter, be dry, free from dust, well ventilated, and exclude the hot sun during the summer.
Fig. 69—Large hog house.
The illustrations show a hog house built with this purpose in view. The building is one hundred and twenty feet long by thirty feet wide, and has an eight-foot alley running lengthwise through the middle, between the two rows of pens. It stands lengthwise east and west with the windows on the south side, the windows being so placed that at noon of the shortest day of the year, the rays of sunlight passing through the upper part will fall upon the floor of the south side pen on the opposite side from the window. This allows the total amount of light coming through the window at this season of the year and at this time of the day to fall upon the floor within the pen; consequently, during the latter winter months, there will be a maximum amount of sunlight on the floor of the pen; the window in the upper part of the building performs the same function for the pen on the north side of the alley. By this arrangement of windows there is possible a maximum amount of sunlight on the floor of the pens in winter, which will serve to warm the interior of the house, and especially the beds, during the latter months of winter, thus making it possible to have pigs farrowed very early in the season. Sunlight not only warms and dries the building, but destroys disease germs, thus making the building both warm and sanitary.