222 DISEASES OF SWINE 



tion was ordered, and within two weeks all symptoms of coughing 

 had disappeared. 



Even more undesirable is the practice, so commonly seen, 

 of allowing the animals to burrow under a rotten straw stack or 

 manure pile at night. Here they get covered with an overheated, 

 rotting manure, are entirely shut off from light and air, and 

 frequently crowd in one on top of the other. The result is that 

 they cannot fail to become overheated, and come out in the 

 morning in such a condition that they are chilled through in a few 

 minutes, and quickly bolt their food and hasten back into these 

 unnatural and unhealthy quarters. Cough and pneumonia very 

 frequently develop, and many animals die during the winter from 

 simple suffocation or smothering. 



One instance of this nature I had occasion to see in northwestern 

 Indiana a few years ago. The hogs, about 40 in number, slept 

 at night around an old straw pile which had been left to rot into 

 manure, and which was water soaked and going through a fermen- 

 tation process. The animals had burrowed holes and galleries 

 under the stack, and there they crawled in at night to sleep. One 

 or two of the animals first showed signs of coughing, and soon the 

 entire herd was coughing. Finally one morning two animals 

 were reported missing at feeding time, and when search was made 

 they were found dead beneath the stack. The farmer at once sus- 

 pected that his herd had cholera, and called the local veterinarian. 

 Postmortem examination of the two dead animals showed ab- 

 solutely no signs of cholera, but every evidence of death due to 

 pneumonia in one carcass and undoubted evidence of death from 

 simple smothering in the other. 



The animals were removed to another lot, and suitable sleep- 

 ing quarters provided for them, where they would have plenty of 

 light and air, and where overcrowding would be impossible. As 

 a result of this change the cough rapidly disappeared and no 

 more animals were lost. 



On a neighboring farm a similar form of hog shed to the ones 

 described in the preceding pages had been constructed during 

 the summer; that is, a framework of posts had been made and 

 the straw pile placed upon this framework. As in the other cases 

 described, the amount of space was entirely too small for the 



