Castration of Pigs Having Scrotal 

 Hernia.* 



Cases of scrotal hernia in pigs or a rupture as the 

 farmer calls it is a markedly hereditary condition. On 

 some farms from year to year there are numerous 

 cases of this kind among the pigs ; on other farms this 

 condition is scarcely known, its presence or absence 

 depending, as may easily be demonstrated, upon 

 heredity. 



Some farmers castrate these pigs as readily as they 

 castrate their ordinary boar pigs, but a great many 

 others find the operation difficult or are entirely un- 

 able to perform it and with them such pigs are usually 

 destroyed as soon as the hernia is noted or the condi- 

 tion is allowed to grow worse until death results from 

 strangulation of the intestine or from a traumatism 

 to the scrotum. 



The value of the animal is so slight that unless 

 there is a considerable number of these ruptured pigs 

 in the same brood or there be a very large number of 

 hogs raised upon the place, this work can never 

 amount to much financially, but frequently when the 

 veterinarian is called to a farm for other work he is 

 asked to castrate one or two or three of these pigs. 



There is scarcely an operation that is more simple 



•Reprinted from "Springtime Surgery," published by the American 

 Journal o) Veterinarv Medicine, Evanston, 111. 



95 



