224 DISEASES OF SWINE 



of the outbreak was the change to proper quarters and change in 

 method and nature of feeding. 



Disposal of Dead Animals. — In the prevention of hog-cholera 

 there is always a great amount of trouble experienced in securing 

 proper disposal of dead animals. The stock raiser does not seem 

 to see the vast importance of this in the prevention of cholera. 

 If you are going to keep your herd free from cholera you must 

 absolutely understand the dangers which attend the common 

 practice of allowing dead animal carcasses to lie exposed in your 

 feed lots to be eaten by the hogs, and at the same time to attract 

 to your farm buzzards from hundreds of miles around, bringing 

 with them the seeds of infection which are sown on your premises, 

 and you later reap the harvest in the form of a severe outbreak of 

 hog-cholera. This may happen when there is no cholera for miles 

 around, and you are at a loss to explain why your herd should 

 have developed cholera, while your neighbors' herds, kept under 

 apparently the same conditions, are free from the disease. Only 

 too often it is looked upon as a matter of luck, and you are likely 

 to arrive at the conclusion that luck is against you in the matter of 

 raising hogs, and you decide to go out of the hog-raising business. 

 This same Une of thought has led many farmers to entirely abandon 

 raising of swine, and in the Central West, where a few years ago it 

 was almost impossible to find a farm without a large herd of hogs, 

 to-day many farmers raise no hogs at all, and a great many others 

 only such as they think will be needed for their own winter meat- 

 supply. 



Unfortunately for himself and his owner the hog is a meat- 

 eating animal when meat is offered him, and will readily devour 

 the carcass of one of his own kind or that of any other dead 

 animal. This is such a convenient way to get rid of dead animal 

 carcasses that many of us, who are inclined to think it a little too 

 much effort to dig a hole and bury the carcass or make a fire and 

 burn it, simply haul the dead animal into the feed lot and allow 

 the hogs to do the work that properly belongs to us. 



Now, in the case of dead hogs, this is altogether an inexcusable 

 method. It does not take much reasoning for anyone to see that 

 if the animals have died of cholera, their flesh will transmit 

 the disease to any other healthy animal that eats this infected 



