Sore Teats
Occasionally the teats of sows, especially sows with their first litters, become chapped or sore. This trouble is frequently due to the too vigorous sucking of the little pigs when the supply of milk is short, to the biting of the teats when the sharp little teeth have not been broken off, or even to cold winds.
An application of boro-glyceride will usually effect a speedy cure. In persistent cases it will be advisable to give the sow a dose or two of opening medicine such as salts or sulphur.
Salt and Soda Poisoning
Although these can scarcely be classed as diseases, the effects are often more serious than those of some actual diseases to which swine are more or less subject.
In the majority of cases the cause is the neglect of the cook to keep separate from the swill the water in which salted meat or other food has been boiled, or the water to which soda has been added in the washing of the plates, etc. An attack if at all severe is usually fatal.
The symptoms are a discoloration of the skin, and a refusal of food. As these are the usual symptoms of several other ailments, it is difficult to determine the cause of death save by a post-mortem examination. It is to be feared that this mixing of a solution of salt and soda with the other swill will be one of the difficulties met with in the more general utilisation of kitchen refuse in the keeping of pigs.
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CURING OF PORK
In the good old times bacon curing was carried on in the large majority of farm-houses as well as in many houses in the country districts, not only where there were conveniences for the keeping of pigs, but many householders were in the habit of buying carcases of pork from their neighbours and curing the major portion for the following year's supply of cured meats. Even the better class labourers would kill and cure it so that as long as it lasted they had on hand a supply of most nutritious and suitable food. Unfortunately a great change has taken place of late years; this convenient and profitable plan has been superseded. The causes may have been many; amongst them, the importation of immense quantities of salt pork of very inferior quality at very low prices from the United States; the change in the public taste which is now for mild cured and lean bacon from young pigs, instead of the more heavily salted meats from older and fatter pigs; the great decrease in the number of pigs kept by cottagers and others in urban districts through the operation of the so-called sanitary regulations; and probably from the different style of living, which may or may not be an improvement, amongst the residents in country districts.