As a breeder of pure bred pigs for sale as boars or yelts for breeding purposes, we were naturally anxious to give the pigs a good start in life so that we should be able to sell them as quickly as possible, and that they should thrive when they came into the possession of their new owners, and thus prove the best possible advertisement of our herds. As a rule we found that if the pigs were allowed to remain on the sows until they were some eight weeks old they were quite strong enough to fend for themselves, that by gradually increasing the length of time which the sow was allowed to remain from the pigs, the latter became accustomed to exist without the mother's milk, and as the milk of the sow naturally dried up when the pigs partially ceased to withdraw it, no trouble was experienced with inflamed udders as is usually or commonly the case when the pigs are suddenly weaned from a sow which is in full milk.
There is also another advantage apart from that to the sow and pigs, it is that the sow will almost invariably come in heat within three or four days of the weaning, and with the best possible chance of becoming in pig.
Some pig keepers are more inclined to wean their litter of pigs at an early age, and then if the sow be low in condition to baulk her at the first time of œstrum. There are objections to this—one of them is that there is frequently a difficulty in getting the sow to conceive after she has been baulked. Why this should be so we have not been able to ascertain. We only record what we know to be a fact.
In our opinion this difficulty is one of the strongest points in favour of the practice of allowing the young pigs of a sow with her first litter, or of an old sow which has become low in condition (either from having had too many pigs left on her, or from other natural cause), to remain on the sow for a longer period than about eight weeks. Some persons will keep the pigs on the sow until they are nearly three months old in the belief that both sow and pigs are benefited, and that the pigs can be kept quite as cheaply if not more so when unweaned than weaned. They also claim that the sow is so much stronger and better fitted to prepare for another litter. Experiments have been carried out in the United States which go far to prove that the first of these two claims is founded on fact; and it has further been demonstrated that certain foods can be fed to the sow without affecting the thrift and health of the pigs which could not with safety be fed to the latter direct, yet when fed through the sow the pigs will thrive on the milk produced therefrom. It is entirely a question of the cost of a rest for the sow during the extra two or three weeks, and the benefit to the sow and her pigs.
One occasionally sees in the press a claim for what is considered to be a great achievement in that some one has bred three litters of pigs from one sow within the year. There really is something wonderful in this since of the fifty-two weeks constituting a year, the sow would be carrying her pigs some forty-eight weeks. This would allow only four weeks for the two litters of pigs to be suckled, and this would also include the few days between the pigs being weaned and the sow coming in heat. Apart from the natural difficulty of successfully breeding three litters of pigs from one sow within twelve months, there exists a far greater possibility of loss rather than of gain from unduly hurrying on the arrival of each litter of pigs from a sow, especially of the profitable kind of sow.
Some forty years since when Small Whites, Small Blacks, and short thick Berkshires were fashionable, the number of pigs in each litter was few, and the number reared still fewer, owing to the limited quantity of milk furnished by the sow. Now, the Large Black, the Large White, the Middle White, the Lincolnshire Curly Coat, the old Gloucester Spots, the Tamworth, the Cumberland, and even the sows of most of the local breeds of pigs are expected to rear nine or ten pigs each litter. Even if it were possible for a sow to bring forth three litters within the year, she could not possibly do justice to them either before or after the piglings arrived in this world; and further, the life of such a sow would of necessity be a short one. It must not be forgotten that in the production of each litter of pigs the sow is compelled to manufacture from 20 to 30 lbs. of flesh, skin, hair, etc., which together constitute the newly farrowed pig, and very frequently this has to be accomplished on a far too limited supply of suitable food.
