28 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [1 Jan., 1902. 
THE SOW AND HER LITTER. 
A few days before farrowing time get ready a nice, clean, dry sty, well 
littered down with hay. Put up the sow in this every day, and she will get 
used to the new surroundings and be contented. During this time feed her 
on weak pollard and water or bran. If she is an old, careful mother, the more 
she is left alone the better, but a young, restless sow will require watching ; 
and take away the young as they are born and put them in a blanket in a 
basket. Return them to her as soon as all are born. If you have a sow given — 
to eating her young, get rid of her as soon as possible ; there is no remedy but _ 
the knife. 
In a late issue of the Journal we described a method of preventing the 
sow from accidentally crushing some of her young ones. It is a very simple 
contrivance, being nothing more than a rail fastened to the bottom of the sides 
of the sty, about 6 inches above the floor, and standing out 5 or 6 inches from 
the side. By this means the little pigs can get clear of the mother as she lies 
down against the side or in the corner. It is good not to give the sow much 
bedding when farrowing, but when they are a week old let the little ones have 
as much as you like. As a full litter is a very heavy drain on the mother, the 
young pigs should be taught to begin to feed when about three or four weeks 
old. Make a shallow trough 3 inches high, 4 feet long, and 8 inches wide, 
so that they can get into it if they like. Then start them on pollard water, 
with milk or treacle. Feed them little and often, and gradually increase the 
quantity, changing the food to crushed corn, boiled corn, milk, oats, and boiled 
barley. Now let them have plenty of exercise. If they should take the mange, 
scrub them well with soapsuds, and then grease them with a mixture of coal oil 
and some other cheap oil. ‘There should always be a paddock for the pig and 
her litter to run in. As soon as the young are thoroughly weaned, take the 
mother right away from them, so that she cannot hear them. Then it is your 
own fault if you don’t turn them into good, early-maturing pigs. Keep them 
growing. A little neglect at this period will give them aserious set-back. The 
wretched, puny little pigs seen on many farms are the result of this neglect. 
They will never become good pigs, their digestive organs have been ruined, 
and yet they will consume more food than double the number of well-nurtured 
animals. The sow should be dried off gradually, and in from three to ten days 
of being dried off she will come into season again. She should then be put 
back to the boar, so that no time may be lost. You can always tell when a 
sow is going to farrow. Try her teats, and if milk comes freely you can rely 
upon her having her litter in from twelve to twenty hours. 
YOUNG PIGS. 
The article on this subject in Cowntry Life chimes in very appropriately 
with our remarks on the care of the sow and her litter. That journal Says :— 
Complaints of young pigs doing badly while with the sow are very common. 
Occasionally the complainant recognises that the sow is a poor milker, or “a 
bad mother,” as the general run of pigbreeders express it ; but in the majority 
of cases it is not even dreamed of that the pigs are doing badly because they do 
not get sufficient milk of proper quality to satisfy their growing requirements. 
A large number of pigs die young from no other cause than that they are 
starved—unable to get sufficient sustenance from their mother. Young pigs 
are difficult to rear by hand; they do not take kindly to cow’s milk, or rather 
it does not suit them because it is deficient in fixed constituents, particularly 
in fat, and they do not pay for the new milk received. There is no greater 
nuisance on a farm than a litter of motherless pigs, or a lot that are practically 
orphaned because their mother has not enough milk for them. It is said that 
pedigree pigstock, like the pedigree cows above mentioned, are the worst 
offenders in the matter of deficient milk production, especially if the herd has 
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