66 FORTY YEARS' EXPERIENCE OF A PRACTICAL HOG MAN 



Finishing Touches. While fitting the herd for the show ring 

 they should be handled daily by the feeder, by brushing them a 

 little or scratching them and coaxing them to lie down where 

 he can handle them about the legs and feet, so that when you 

 are ready to trim the toes and hoofs into nice shape they will not 

 get excited, but will lie quietly and let you work over them as you 

 wish. 



The foot and pastern of the show pig can be improved one 

 hundred percent by proper trimming. When the pig is lying 

 down, quietly take the foot in the left hand and with a very 

 sharp knife trim the lower edges off the hoof, commencing well 

 back and following around the entire hoof, shaping the toe up as 

 close as possible to the fleshy part of the foot without injury. 

 If the dewclaws are of unusual length these too can be shaped 

 up at the bottom and pared down to proper shape. All this work 

 should be done at odd times before starting out to the fair. 



A nice brushing every day or two after sprinkling with dis- 

 infectant and crude oil is very essential, not only to make the show 

 herd quiet and docile, but to improve the condition of the skin 

 and hair. All this is a help in shedding the old coat. The earlier 

 this is commenced in the. preparation of fitting a show herd the 

 better. Every animal except the under six months pigs should 

 shed off his or her old coat not later than the first of August, that 

 the new coat may be nicely started before the fair season opens. 

 Generally all this will come along in due time if the animals 

 are fed as above and are gaining in flesh constantly. If any of 

 the herd should not begin to show inclination to shed by the mid- 

 dle of June or the first of July, . I would give them a wallow 

 hole in which some clay has been placed, if it is not naturally a 

 clay soil, keeping this hole rather thick in mud, and adding 

 some wood ashes. 



Clipping the Hair. Many showmen are in the habit of clip- 

 ping the hair of their older animals when they do not shed off 

 in time. While this, in some instances, looks better than an 

 extremely coarse coat of hair, it always shows every little un- 

 evenness in the flesh of the animal. This practice is more com- 

 mon among the Poland-China showmen than any other breed 

 I believe, yet I have seen some show animals come into the ring 

 that were closely clipped, showing almost no hair and sprayed in 

 oil, that really I think were not showing as well as though not 

 clipped, for the reason that little uneven places could be plainly 

 seen along the back and sides, evidence to the Judge that they did 

 not flesh evenly as they should, and would in a way, militate 

 against them. 



Before entering the show ring or as early after arriving on 

 the fair grounds as possible, the herdsman should take a hand 

 clipper and clip the long hairs off the edges of the ears and about 

 the nose and jaw of the hogs and also clip the tail clean from 



