Fig. 128. A more elaborate piggery.
Fig. 129. Elevation of the house shown in [Fig. 128].
A better but more expensive piggery, [Figs. 128] and [129], shows five pens, though the plan lends itself to a greater or lesser number. The area devoted to each bed is 8 × 8 feet. The driveway, which also serves for temporary storage of manures, is 8 feet wide and extends lengthwise through the building. The floor of the driveway should be about one foot lower than the feeding and sleeping floors at the middle, and should be paved or asphalted. (See cross section, [Fig. 129].) The feeding floor upon which the troughs rest may be 4 or 5 feet long, and should descend towards the driving floor. Ordinary gates are hung to the posts which serve, with the boarding, to separate the pens. These gates are fastened at the other end of the posts which separate the feeding compartments. When so fastened each brood animal has a bedroom 8 × 8, a receptacle for manure 8 × 8, and a feeding floor 4 × 8 feet. This arrangement presupposes that most of the foods will be fed in the troughs. If, when the animals are first placed in the pens, the paved portion of the floor be soiled with dirt and water, the excreta thereafter will be deposited by the animals on this floor and not in the bedroom. The pig is really a cleanly animal if it is given a few timely sensible hints. When it is desired to remove the manure the gates are all swung to the right or left, as most convenient, and they then serve to fasten all of the animals in the bed compartments, and the driveway is left unobstructed. One of the outside openings to the driveway should also be provided with a gate to swing in, as well as an ordinary door to swing out. These pens may all be thrown open in the summer when it is desired to pasture the herd.
The illustration shows a small wing attached which may serve many useful purposes. A matched upper floor and abundant light and ventilation should be provided. The roof story may be used for housing some corn in the ear and straw for bedding. In cold weather the upper floor should have some straw left on it to promote warmth in the pens below.
The object in discussing these three styles of piggeries has been to emphasize cleanliness, economy of labor in caring for the animals, the comfort of the animals, prevention of wanton waste of manure, and economy in the production of healthy swine in piggeries so arranged that the animals may be conveniently grazed during the summer, and kept reasonably clean and comfortable in winter.
THE SILO
The Egyptians, the Romans, and the American Indians all stored grain in pits or silos which were air-tight, or as nearly so as large rude structures could be made. The custom of using silos for storing grain in Spain and France never became common, though several attempts were made to preserve large quantities of grain for several years, that the overproduction of one year might be kept until there were deficient harvests.
The subject of ensilaging green “roughage” material attracted attention in the United States soon after 1870. As early as 1875, Doctor Manly Miles, then connected with the Illinois Industrial University, was fairly successful in preserving the green tops of broom corn in an earthen silo. Interest in the subject of preserving green material in silos was widely aroused in America by the appearance of a book on ensilage, translated in 1878-9. The book was published in France in 1877, by M. Auguste Goffart.