FARM and STATION

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18066, 18 April 1933, Page 8

FARM and STATION

Treatment of Diseases Iu Profitable Pig Farming

IX the Jinal section of.' a paper on feeding and management for pig fanning prepared for suppliers of tlio ; Ngatiporou Co-operative Dairy Company, Limited, Mr. W. McKinnon, of Gisborne, deals with the treatment of J diseases. Several of these were men- | tinned in the section given last Satur- ! day, and the remainder arc given bcj low: — | Rickets and Paralysis. Rickets is a disease of the bones of ' young, growing animals. There is ! failure to deposit sulticient mineral iu : the bones, which remain soft and 'easily bent. The symptoms are malformation of limb bones, with enlargement of joints, stiffness or lameness, unthriftiness, and owing to defective diet, which is the root cause, there is a tendency to suffer front pneumonia, j A similar trouble with less obvious dei fortuity affects older pigs. Lack of 1 phosphorus calcium and Vitamin D arc the main factors iu that order of importance.

I Paralysis is marked by lack of control of hindquarters, which sway from side to side, and in bad eases are dragged along the ground. It is a neuritis, probably due to lack of Vitamin B, a vitmin usually present in green forage and grains. Chronic constipation ; may be a factor.

| Milk cases of rickets are sometimes confused with rheumatism. While ; rickets and paralysis arc distinct dis--1 eases, and their pathology still under consideration, from a practical point of | view they are related iu that they are 'often met with under somewhat simi- ' Jar conditions of feed and manage- | ment, where there is a lack of suiti- | cicnt phosphorus or lime, or great ex- •! cess of either, undue confinement, parj ticularly in ill-lighted styes with lack of sunlight and lack of green food and vitamins.

Both conditions arc likely to benefit from a laxative, either salts or raw linseed oil in the food, giving a run on young pasture or supplying green food, particularly clovers, giving a small ration of bean or pea meal, together with half-ounce daily doses of eodliver oil. While eodliver oil is beneficial, Ahe quantity specified should never be i exceeded, and it should not be fed to 'pigs approaching bacon stage, or the meat may be tainted. Infectious Diseases.

Pastcurellosis: Swine plague or infectious pneumonia. This is due to the presence of specific organism, a pasteurella. Recovered pigs may harbor the germ for some time. It is

frequently introduced by sale purpurchases. Bad feeding methods lower resistance and predispose to this. The symptoms are those of pneumonia, previously described, but the trouble continues to spread through the herd.

Control: All pigs showing suspicious symptoms of cough, hurried breathing, nasal discharge, and loss of condition should bo segregated and any hopelessly affected destroyed and buried. The balance should have an airy shelter, bedding in. winter and supplementary feeding, pollard, green stuff, and meal meal with milk, and it should be found possible to fatten and dispose of a good percentage. Tuberculosis.

This is duo to the presence of the tubercle bacillus. In many cases the disease is present without noticeable symptoms, and is only discovered after slaughter. Infection in the majority of cases probably comes from consuming milk or milk products containing the organisms, and in other cases from sticking a diseased mother, from, styes or runs contaminated by affected pigs, from grazing after a diseased cow, rarely from poultry. Infection from pasture is closely guarded against in the United States of America.

■Symptoms occasionally noted me swelling of one of the glands in the throat region, chronic enlargement and hardening of one or several mammary glands, or gradual wasting and chronic cough in mature pigs (not to he confused with pneumohia seen mostly in younger animals). Post-mortem signs arc usually enlargement with presence of whitish cheesy material-in any of the lymphatic glands, small or largo iirm nodules or lumps on inner sides of ribs, or through substance of lungs, liver, and spleen. Tuberculosis is a notifiable disease, and where the owner has reasonable grounds for believing the pig to be affected, it is his duty to report it to the nearest inspector of stock. • Complete eradication cannot be looked for Avhilc there is so much hoii'io separation, and even pasteurisation of milk or by-products, unless it is efficient, cannot be relied on, but more could be done by owners with respect to feeding pieces, as it is a

question whether some troughs are properly cleaned out from one year’s end to another, so that infection may linger round these places. Where extensive infection is encountered, a scrutiny of the daily herd, in cases of of home separation is called for. Lice.

A piece of sacking tied to a post at about a foot from the ground and kept