THE PIGGERY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1250, 13 February 1896, Page 7

THE PIGGERY.

AILING PIGS.

“ Pately Bridge,” in Farm and Home, teplies to an inquirer on the subject of his pigs ailing:—The old, old scoi}' pigs did very well until they were two months old, and then stopped short, refusing to grow, and becoming blotchy and irritable in their skins Something of the trouble may be due to the pigs being of a bad sort, but invariably it arises from over or improper feeding. The pigs are dragged hwhv from the sow when they aie six or seven weeks old ; they have never been taught to eat so as to become independent of her milk, and develop their digestive organs, and then they me freely fed on material with which tlndr unaccustomed stomachs a*e quite incapable of dealing. Results—indigestion, which in its turn is the cause ot diarrhoea, fits, skin-eruptions, and general unthriftiness. The animals do not move a peg, simply because the food consumed is not properly digested. The good or bad management of young pigs means all the difference between ‘•good luck” and “bad luck,” and, taken all round, there is more bad luck than good, because the system of weaning and rearing young pigs as generally practised is bad. It is a prostitution of the term “ weaning ” to separate the pigs from the sow, and begin at once to feed them on food, the quantity and quality of which would turn the stomach of an old hog, as is commonly the practice. Young pigs are the better for exercise, but they rarely get any beyond what is obtainable in a miserable little court annexed to an equally miserable little pen. No provision is made for the earth and grit they would gather cut side. Milk is not always available, or this thickened with ground oats, barley, peas, or a little wheat, with some green stuff, is the most suitable diet for young pigs. There is always too much rush to get them fat before there is any frame to hang it on. "When the digestion has improved, the irritation of the skin will disappear,