196 CONKEY'S STOCK BOOK 



male is worth $1.00 more than if sired by a scrub. On this basis you can 

 estimate your high grade animal earning in the first fall with at least 

 twenty services, averaging six pigs to the litter $120. This represents 

 the lowest possible estimate of the improvement to your original stock. 



Keep in mind that a good hog will respond to good treatment, because 

 he is bred for that. The good hog will be ready for market in three-fourths 

 the time it takes to grow and fatten the scrub. Count this saving, when 

 you go to purchase a high-grade boar. 



Respect good ancestors, but select your boar for good individual qualities 

 not alone for his excellent breed. You use him as an individual, and he 

 will transmit his individual qualities, sporting back to good and bad qualities 

 of his dam and sire. In the individual, then, look for masculinity, strong, 

 virile characteristics; and in addition make doubly sure that this most 

 important, hardest worked member of your herd has natural constitution 

 and bodily vigor. Avoid coarseness, but get strength. You can judge a 

 good deal by general form and carriage. 



Sometimes, however, a very good-seeming individual proves unfit as a 

 sire. The first trial is the test. But if, after due experiment, the animal 

 proves unfit, there is nothing left but to finish him for the butcher, and get 

 a better boar. Don't foist him on any other stockman, for time is valuable 

 to every man in this business. Be square. 



One important consideration is disposition. Good manners are profit- 

 able, even in hogs. Many boars are extremely ugly-natured, fighting all the 

 time. Sometimes this fault is due to handling in the part of the attendant 

 or owner. But get rid of the quarrelsome boar; he's a mighty unsatisfac- 

 tory animal to have around. On the other hand, a certain amount of fret- 

 iulness, restiveness, etc., is to be expected from the vigorous animal in 

 breeding season. He should be given special attention. Note what is said 

 about feeds and feeding, page 54. Not properly managed at this time, he 

 may be ruined in disposition and become unmanageable. 



A boar can hardly reach maturity before twelve months; and as a sire, 

 should be considered in his prime from one to five years old. Do not use 

 him, except for limited purposes of exercise and test, before one year old, 

 or he will be injured in growth and cannot be counted on for future vigor- 

 ous off-spring. Patience is necessary sometimes in inducing the animal 

 to perform his first service. Only one service should be allowed to a sow, 

 as more will increase neither the number nor the vigor of the brood, 

 opinions to the contrary notwithstanding. 



THE SOW In the same way, the sow should not be used before she has 

 a full year's growth. Make haste slowly, if you want useful- 

 ness, strong pigs and full litters. Feed the brood sow throughout the 112 

 days' gestation period with a good balanced ration to provide bone and fat 

 forming material for her little ones. Read page 54 on feeds and feeding. 

 Remember that any food having some element out of proportion to the 

 natural needs of the animal body will result in (1) waste of that surplus 

 element, of (2) in over development of that part of the body, with corre- 

 sponding deficiency in another. The food the sow gets before farrowing 

 determines the character of her pigs. Food high in ash will make the little 

 ones all frame and weak in flesh. Food high in fat and low in ash chances 

 are the pigs will be over fat with no frame to support them, and what frame 

 they have, built at the expense of the sow's bone material; so that her 

 skeleton will be "soft" and liable to easy fracture. 



Read carefully pages 52-55 on feeds and feeding and FEED A BAL- 

 ANCED RATION, 



