EXPERIMENT STATION BULLETINS. 195 



Bulletin No. 223. 



KOBEBT S. SUAW. 



PART I. 



EQUIPMENT OF SWINE DIVISION INCLUDING BUILDING, COST, YARDS, 



FENCES, ETC. 



The Building. — Fig. 1 represents the ground plan of the College piggery as it 

 is now fitted for use. The building itself was among the first erected at the i»- 

 stitution for housing live stock and was constructed almost solely by student 

 labor. It is a very old building but, nevertheless, today it contains some excel- 

 lent material in almost perfect state ^of preservation. The excellent pine 

 siding and the oak posts, studs, joists, rafters, sheathing and lining, 

 bespeak of days • when these materials were plentiful and so inexpensive that 

 nothing but the choicest was used even in the construction of a piggery. The 

 quality and value of these materials, combined with the necessity for making 

 the best use of the material at hand, were some of the conditions requiring the 

 refitting of the old rather than the erection of a new building. In planning and 

 constructing a new building there should be nothing to interfere with the develop- 

 ment of the most pei'fectly desirable plans; in refitting an old building conditions 

 are sure to arise to thwart the execution of desired plans or changes. It is also 

 possible to figure very closely on the cost of erecting a new building while esti- 

 mates on reconstruction, or refitting, seldom fail to fall short owing largely to 

 the inability to determine exactly what material must be replaced, particularly 

 that which is covered up. 



We do not present these plans desiring our readers to accept them as models 

 for the Michigan swine raiser, for the conditions at the college are very different 

 from those surrounding the average breeder or pork producer. While few private 

 individuals keep more than one breed of hogs, the College is maintaining no less 

 than seven distinct breeds for a double purpose. The primary object in keeping 

 so many breeds is to furnish plenty of good specimens to give our students an 

 opportunity to study, in the most practical way, the breed type and characteristics 

 of each breed; the secondary object is to furnish stocks of desirable types for ex- 

 perimental breeding and feeding purposes. At present we have nine pens of Wl- 

 perimental feeder hogs comprising fifty-two heads. The number of breeds enu- 

 merated, requiring the maintenance of several boars, and the numerous lots of 

 experimental and breeding pigs, demand a structure with a large number of pens. 

 The plan of the remodeled building and added equipment are therefore presented, 

 not as models, but with the hope that here and there suggestions of value may 

 be thrown out. 



During the past few years there has been a marked increase in the advocacy 

 and use of cots for sheltering swine during the entire year. On first thought our 

 plans may seem to oppose this method., but such is not the case. We are using 

 all the pens in this building and also a dozen cots in yards during the entire 

 year, the former for boars, young pigs and experimental feeders and the latter 

 for brood sows and young animals being grown for breeders. Both methods have 

 their merits and demerits, but we are becoming convinced that under Michiga* 

 conditions, with our rigorous winters, a combination of piggery and cots is more 

 desirable for the swine grower than either alone. 



The ground plan in Fig. 1 shows the form of the original building 34x80 feet, 

 consisting of a main structure 24x80 feet with a lean-to 10x80 feet on the soutk 

 side. Originally this building was fitted with a passageway 8 feet wide all the 

 way across the north side. The remainder of the enclosed space was divided into 

 ten pens of various widths extending from the passage w^ay on the north to the 

 south wall of the building. These long narrow divisions were divided in the 

 center forming inner and outer pens; the former were used for feeding and 

 sleeping quarters and the latter as sort of covered sheds. By this arrangement 

 with the pens proper running down through the center of the building, there was 

 no possibility of sunlight ever reaching the sleeping apartments. According to 



