554 Veterinary Obstetrics 



glands which supply the lesser amount. In this way it fre- 

 quently occurs that one or more of the pigs is very poorly nour- 

 ished. It has been suggested that these weaker individuals be 

 put upon the larger teats, but this is not a very easy process to 

 carry out, since the selection of the teats is generally made by 

 the pigs themselves and adhered to quite vigorously. When 

 there are more young than there are teats present, the excess 

 should be destroyed, reared by hand or placed upon another ani- 

 mal. The latter plan is most convenient, but does not always 

 succeed, because the foster mother will not always allow the 

 young animal to suck. 



Sometimes, when several animals of the same species, with 

 young, are kept in the same enclosure, the older or stronger young 

 animals may rob the younger ones of food by sucking not only 

 their own mother but also that of their younger neighbors, and 

 being stronger can readily push them away from the teat. Such 

 an occurrence should be watched for and the needed measures 

 taken to insure the younger animal its normal food supply. 



The identification of the new-born young of a given parent 

 sometimes offers serious difficulty, and the veterinarian should be 

 in as good a position as possible to aid owners in escaping from such 

 a dilemma. When females of the same species give birth to young 

 at about the same time and in the same enclosure, their offspring 

 may become interchanged. The young of one may be stolen by 

 another mother, and considerable confusion thus brought about. 

 Sometimes an animal which has not yet given birth to young 

 may take the young of another animal and suckle it and drive 

 away the actual mother. One case, which we observed, raised a 

 serious question as to pedigree. A client owned a valuable herd 

 of pedigreed draft mares, among which there was a grade draft 

 mare of very low value. Our client, upon going to the pasture 

 one morning, found a very excellent foal being cared for by the 

 cheap grade mare. The disparity between the form and quality 

 of the foal and what he would expect from the inferior mare was 

 so great that his suspicions were at once arou.sed. In the same 

 enclosure was one of his best pedigreed mares, which looked as 

 though she had foaled, although there was^ no great evidence 

 and there were .scarcely any traces of blood or fetal fluids upon 

 the tail or thighs. On the other hand, the grade mare had her 

 tail and thighs badly .soiled and portions of the afterbirth were 



