244 DISEASES OF SWINE. 



of food, or of not so stimulating a character, and occasional doses of 

 Epsom salts or sulphur. 



MANGE. 



Few domesticated animals are so subject to this loathsome disease 

 as the hog if he is neglected and filthily kept ; but in a well cleaned 

 and well managed piggery it is rarely or never seen, unless some, 

 whose blood from generation to generation has been tainted with it, 

 should be incautiously admitted. A mangy hog cannot possibly 

 thrive well. His foul and scurfy hide will never loosen so as to suffer 

 the accumulation of flesh and fat under it. 



Except it is hereditary, it may, although with some trouble, be 

 perfectly eradicated. The first thing to be done is to clean the hog 

 well ; without this all external applications and internal medicines 

 will be thrown away. The animal must be scrubbed all over with a 

 good strong soap-lather, and when he is well dried with wisps of 

 straw he will be ready for the ointment, and no better one can be used 

 than the Mild Ointment for Scab in Sheep (Recipe No. 14, p. 225). 

 A little of this should be well rubbed all over him every second or 

 third day ; but at the same time internal medicine should not be 

 omitted. There is no animal in which it is more necessary to attack 

 this and similar diseases constitutionally. 



RECIPE (No. 2). 

 Alterative Pojrder for Swine.— Take flowers of sulphur, a quarter of an ounce; 

 ^thiop's mineral, three grains ; nitre, and cream of tartar, half a drachm. Mix, 

 and give daily in a little thickened gruel or wash. 



This, like the scab in sheep, is a very infectious disease, and care 

 should be taken to scour the sty well with soap, and afterwards to 

 wash it with a solution of chloride of lime, as recommended at page 

 225. The rubbing-post, that useful, but too often neglected article 

 of furniture in every sty, should particularly be attended to. 



so RE EARS. 



There are very often troublesome cracks and sores at the back of 

 the large lop-ears of some breeds. If there is any disposition to mange, 

 it is most evident about the ears of these animals, and the mischief is 

 sadly aggravated when brutes in human shape set every ferocious 

 dog at the stray pig, the favourite hold of which is the ear. The 

 Healing Cleansing Ointment for Cattle (Recipe No. 10, p. 53) will 

 most readily heal the sores. 



PIGGING. 



The sow usually goes with pig four months, but there is more 

 irregularity in her time than in that of any other of our domesticated 

 quadrupeds. A week or ten days before her pigging she should be 

 separated from the rest, otherwise the young ones would probably be 

 devoured as soon as they are dropped ; and if she shows any dispo- 

 sition to destroy them, or if she has ever done so, she should be care- 



