SHOW PIGS AS BREEDERS

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 54

SHOW PIGS AS BREEDERS

In a- discussion in the "Live Stock Journal” as to whether getting pigs into condition for show purposes spoils their breeding capacity, Mr Sanders Spenser, the well-known English breeder of high cla-ss swine, says:—“As an instance of the confidence with which some writers express their opinion, I would quote the following from an article which recently appeared in a journal which worthily occupies a very high position.: ‘Never buy show animals ; they have been .stuffed and pampered too much/ There is no beating übout the bush here, nor is it possible to doubt the meaning of the words —Never buy show animals. But let uis examine the advice so confidently given. I will not, as an exhibitor of neatly 35 years’ practice, discuss the point from the showman’s point of view, although I should be materially affected if the assertion that ‘all show pigs have been stuffed and pampered too much’ were true, since I am in the ba.bit of annually selling a number of young pigs under seven months which I have been successfully exhibiting, and are not required for my own herd. For a great many years it has been my custom to reserve for breeding purposes some of the best of these young boars and sows, which have been so ‘stuffed and pampered’ that they have won prizes; the results have been such that I am led to express an . opinion that the advice given never to buy show pigs is unsound, and founded on unfortunate experience or want of complete knowledge. I could site scores of instances of pigs which have been considerable winners of prizes in classes for pigs under nine months oldproving as complete successes in the breeding as in the show pens. “Two of my most prolific tribes or families, and the most successful at home and albroad as prize winners, breeders of pure- breeds and crosses when mated with foreign stock, are descended from two lots of yel-ts which were prize win.

years since.*at a time when pigs to he successful at fat stock shows needed to be made a,s fat as it was possible to make them. Two other instances arc furnished by the large white boar Holywell Dublin, one of the best show and, 'breeding boars ever shown. This pig's, first appearance in the show yard was in its class- at Lord Tredegar’s show, then he spent the best part of five summers in the show yard, and the winters at the stud. The second boar was tbe middle white Holywell Count. This pig, too. was a first prize winner at the- Royal ere he was a year old. and subsequently won 24 prizes before he was 5 years old ; yet lie begat thousands of pigs, which have included noted prize winners and breeding pigs, until an accident ended a noted career for nearly nine years/’