386 Western Live-stock Management 
desirable. On farms where sheep as well as pigs are kept, 
the dipping vat is ordinarily already installed, but where 
sheep are not kept and only a small number of pigs are 
raised, it may be considered too expensive to install a 
dipping vat. In the latter case a hole may be dug in the 
ground and water poured into it and the sheep dip or 
crude oil added to it. The pigs are then allowed to 
wallow in it at their pleasure, and in hot weather they 
will keep themselves free from vermin. The difficulty 
with this method is that the wallow will soon become 
foul, and if sows which are suckling pigs are allowed 
to run into it they daub themselves with mud so that the 
little pigs get the mud into their stomachs, causing some 
losses. ‘This difficulty may be largely obviated by lining 
the hole with planks, or in other words, building a box of 
suitable size and embedding it in the earth, allowing the 
edges to extend slightly above the level of the ground. 
If the sides are high enough to avoid splashing the water 
over, a mud-hole can be avoided. The wallowing vat 
should be embedded more deeply in the ground at one side 
than at the other, so that pigs may lie in the water at 
different depths as they desire, and so that they can get 
in and out of the vat without difficulty. Wallowing vats 
of concrete are often used and they are very satisfactory 
and not particularly expensive. 
Rubbing posts, consisting of bagging or some other 
absorbent material tightly bound around posts, located 
conveniently for the pigs to rub on them and saturated 
with crude oil, have been recommended as a means for 
keeping pigs free from vermin, but the results have not 
been entirely satisfactory. There are too many other 
posts which are convenient for the pigs to rub on, and they 
do not use the oiled posts enough. Various devices 
