PLEURISY IN PIGS.

Pahiatua Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13087, 22 October 1935, Page 3

PLEURISY IN PIGS.

APPEAL TO FARMERS. The Live Stock Division of the Department of Agriculture is appealing to pigkeepers to do all in their power to cheek pleurisy. Pigs may have only a slight attack and quite recover. They may contract the trouble at an early age and, surviving it, may appear to be quite healthy. Put some little adhesion of the pleura may remain, and when slaughter takes place if an adhesion even about the size of a florin is to be seen, an otherwise perfect carcase must be declared unexportable. It is the exceeding strictness of the British inspection that is responsible. The local inspector can see no reason for rejection, but he knows it is no use passing a carcase at this end that will be rejected at the Home end. Pleurisy is generally the result of bad management, and the most common weakness in management is failure to provide satisfactory housing states an authority in an exchange). Draughts are fatal to pigs, but pig-keepers are now generally appreciating this fact. While draughts are fatal, there is even a greater weakness in housing, and this is failure to ventilate it properly. treasonable exposure tends to harden the constitution of all animals in a state of health, but when confined to stuffy and close atmospheres, illness or disease will prevail sooner or later. In human lung troubles the main cause is the breathing of contaminated air; indeed, consumption has been called the bedroom disease, and the most approved cure is sleeping where the pure night air can be breathed. While pigs should be protected from draughts they must have pure air to breathe, and therefore proper ventilation of the pig-house is imperative If a proper means of ventilation cannot be devised, then the front should be absolutely open. One can hardly blame a farmer for failing to provide proper ventilation in a pig-house seeing that the leading architects of the country cannot tell him how to properly ventilate his own dwelling-house. The only ventilation the architect provides is by means of windows, and thus in providing fresh air they also provide draughts. One of the most urgent needs of the world to-day is a proper means of ventilating the buildings where human beings dwell, and next to this a simple way of -providing fresh air for animals to breathe in the places where they sleep, and this while given adequate protection from draughts. And provision of fresh air and freedom from draughts is the best way to prevent pleurisy and other lung troubles in pigs. .It should also be remembered that the animal that is well fed, that has all the mineral matter it needs, is much less subject to disease than the ill-feel animal. The department advises in this connection that there is a need of balanced meals for pigs, and this is most necessary. For young pigs the department also advises the use of a small quantity of cod liver oil, iii order to provide the necessary vitamins, especially vitamin A. Healising the necessity of this vitamin, but knowing the drawback to carcase quality of using too much oil, the Pig Marketing Association has incorporated in Vita meal a special vitamin preparation which provides the necessary vitamins without any of the drawback provided by cod liver oil. BUYING A HERD SIRE. The job of selecting a herd sire is probably one of the most difficult tasks assigned to a breeder of dairv cattle (writes E. T. Wallace, Purdue University, in Hoards Dairyman). One breeder says: “I worrv myself sick until I find a bull and then keep on worrying because I might have made a mistake.A breeder should confess concern about his herd sire selection. Procurement ill the right, hull ensures improvement in his herd,: whereas the wrong hull may completely destroy the results of several generaof careful breeding. How, then, may the thoughtful breeder be guided in this important decision

First, he should make a very careful an ilysis of his existing herd. By .4o doing, he thereby establishes a standard of both type and production to be maintained or improved bv the new bull. This Standard should be set—-not by the avCra&e cows in the, herd—but from the top end of the held. Second, the bull selected should bq' healthy, well grown, and nil active breeder.

r l bird, tin* ac tual selection of the bull will be confined either to an aged or meritorious sire or to a young bull. Very few meritorious proved sires are for sale. For this reason most breeders will be forced to limit their selection to young bulls, fii selecting a you tier bull, what eviejenee cf transmitting ability is worth considering? The transmitting ability of meritorious proved bulls has been established through the records of their daughters. It is reasonable to believe that a. bull capable of siring 400!b daughters will transmit this same production to his sons. Therelore a. son of a. meritorious sire carries considerable promise. However, this sire is only one of the

parents. The Jam also contributes to the inheritance of the bull. In considering the dam we should expect answers to the following questions :

1. Is she of acceptable type? 2. Does she have a good udder? 3. Is she a consistent producer and a regular breeder? 4. What are her lifetime production records ?

5. Is she a daughter of a meritorious sire?

6. Does she have any producing off-spring ? We might also inquire as to the producing and transmitting ability of the maternal grandson, asking the same questions. The old adage, “A good bull must have a good mother,'’ is well written, and merits careful consideration in selecting a herd sire.

This procedure of analysis builds an inheritance pedigree of the young bull in question. A bull can only transmit those characters inherited from his parents. It is therefore important to measure this inheritance as completely and accurately as possible. Too often a bull rises to unearned fame through the records of a few high record daughters. Such information is misleading. Uniformity of offspring is far more important, and gives a more accurate measure of true transmitting ability A reputable and successful breeder should gladly co-operadbe in assembling this information. If he happens to be your neighbour, so much the better. Distance and foreign names do not make a bull more valuable.

R EGULATED MEAT EXPORT. An intelligent observer has remarked that the agreement arrived at between the Home Government and the Governments of New Zealand and Australia in regard to meat shipments is a system of regulated supplies which is much to l>e preferred to haphazard shipments with their resultant sharp falls and sharp rises in prices. A feature of the agreement is that the weight of imported supplies is eased in the fourth quarter when the heavy Home supplies are coming off the grass, this having the natural tendency to restrict competition between Home and imported meat. While shipments of frozen meat have been cut down so far as both Australia and New Zealand .are concerned, an increase in the amount of chilled beef has been allowed. In mutton and lamb New Zealand has obtained a rather more liberal concession than Australia. East year New Zealand shipped 3,555,0(H) ewt, this year it is estimated to be shipping 3,851,000 c-wt, and next year it is to be allowed to ship 3,900,000 cwt. Australia.. which this year shipped 1.628,000 cwt, is allowed t<> ship 1,887,000 cwt this year, *md 1,750,000 cwt next year. These figures are, however, not the final word, for the agreement provides for adjustments upwards or downwards in the light of later estimates of United Kingdom production and the capacity of the United Kingdom market.

THE ABERDEEN ANGUS. The great interest being taken in the Aberdeen Angus breed is some indication that there will be a good future before the chilled beef trade. The Aberdeen Angus is an ideal breed for the production of baby beef and the early maturing wellfleshed carcase that will suit the most critical market. The prices paid for Aberdeen Angus breeding stock at some recent sales shows that the breeding of this great type of beef animal must be highly remunerative. And while the standard of the breed in this country is very satisfactory, based as it is on some of the best breeding animals that have left Britain, it is satisfactory to know that valuable American representatives of the breed are being imported. The beef producers of the Argentine have proved that breed quality is a bio; factor in catering to tin* British market, and tlie _success of the promising chilled heel trade now being established will mainly,, depend on the quality ot the carcases that are sent to Britain. c GR ASS GRUB. A Taranaki farmer settled the grass grub by turning his store pigs on .to the affected fields in the month ot May. The pigs were ringed, and (his prevented them doing too much damage. Being rung the pigs only turned up the patches of grass that had been cut by the giub. and tlie pigs made short work of the post, for inspection of the affected patches as the pigs left them disclosed an absolute clearance of the grub. When the pigs had finished their work the affected patches were re-sown, and the field harrowed and rolled. The following season the best parts of the field were the former grubaffected portions. LONDON'S FIRST MIEK BAR. It is said that the only good thing prohibition did for the United States of America was the effect it had in introducing the milkdrinking habit. And what prohibi-

tion did f®r milk in Amerca high taxation of beer and spirits is doing for milk in Germany and Britain. As part of the drink-more-milk campaign in England a milk bar was conducted at the last Royal Show of England, and now London is having its first milk-bar. A corner site in Fleet Street is being prepared for it. This may bo regarded as just beginning, and that milk-bars will soon be working for the benefit of the dairy industry in all the leading provincial cities and tlie principal seaside resorts.