156 MISSOURI AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 



there are too many small houses or beds for the sows to sleep in, thev 

 pile up and crowd one another and the small ones especially have a 

 poor chance. This fall I built a house twenty-four feet long, fourteen 

 feet high and sixteen feet wide on the hillside or in the timber with 

 the south side -open three or four feet high and the other sides all 

 closed tight. I covered it with rails giving good pitch and covered that 

 with hay, leaving a double wall on the north and at the two ends; 

 filled first between the walls with hay tamping it in and covered the 

 whole thing with hay or straw. It makes a nice warm place and does 

 not sweat the hogs and they do not crowd one another, but if one jumps 

 up the others get out of the way. The shed must be large enough for 

 the sows at farrowing time and they should have plenty of room, so 

 they will not have to turn on their pigs to get out of the house. I 

 think this is an important subject and has been a pretty costly one to 

 me in my time. 



Mr. Anderson : I want small houses so there will not be room for 

 more than three or four sows to get into one house, not room enough 

 to make a pile. If you have a large house and room for fifteen or 

 twenty or more sows, they will naturally pile up when it is cold, but 

 where there is not room for more than three or four they will not 

 pile up. 



Mr. Canaday : My pasture is large for sows and it is better to 

 let them all sleep in one house than to cut it up into smaller houses, 

 they can get a better range. I have twenty or thirty sows to sleep in 

 this large bed. I do not hear much fuss. They are well acquainted and 

 each one knows her master. If they are separated awhile and then put 

 together, they will fuss. I can pasture them to better advantage by 

 letting them all run together and it would be quite a job to separate 

 them all at bed time. At pigging time, of course, I separate them be- 

 fore bringing pigs. 



Mr. Anderson : Let as many sows on the same pasture as you 

 want to, if you will just have the house, they will divide themselves. 

 Have the house so that not more than three or four can get into one 

 house and only three or four will get into the same house. 



Mr. Ziegler: My best success has been with the small houses. I 

 used to raise hogs, quite extensively, though not so many as I would 

 like to have raised. I had the best success with houses seven by seven 

 feet, built in an A shape, very deep and very steep with a slat or rafter 

 at the top and a door in the end. I could move these houses arout.d 

 wherever suitable and by pigging time would move them around in my 

 pasture and bed them well, and my sows found the way in and when 

 they were in, I made hurdles by nailing three boards together so I could 



