CHAPTER XIII.
There are few things more conducive to the thriving and well-being of swine than airy, spacious, well-constructed styes, and, above all, cleanliness. The old prejudices—that any place was good enough to keep a pig in, and that filth and pig-styes were synonymous terms—are now passed away, and the necessity of attention to this branch of porcine economy generally recognized.
Formerly swine were too often housed in damp, dirty, close, imperfectly built sheds; this was an error, and a fruitful source of disease, and of unthrifty animals.
In large establishments where numerous pigs are kept, there should be divisions appropriated to all the different kinds of pigs; the males, the breeding sows, the newly weaned, and the fattening pigs should all be kept separate; and it were as well that in the divisions appropriated to the second and last of these four classes, there should be a distinct apartment for each animal, all opening into a yard or enclosure of limited extent. As pigs require warmth, these buildings should face the south, and be kept weather-tight and well drained. Good ventilation is also important, for it is needless to expect animals to make good flesh and retain their health unless they have a sufficiency of pure air. The blood requires it to give it vitality and free it from impurities, as much as the stomach requires wholesome and strengthening food, and when it has it not, becomes vitiated, and impairs all the animal functions.
"The blood, the fountain whence the spirits flow,
The generous stream that waters every part,
And motion, vigor, and warm life conveys
To every moving, breathing particle,"
becomes contaminated by those aërial poisons given out bv the decaying vegetable matter, rotten or damp litter, accumulations of dung, and animal exhalations engendered by ill-ventilated styes. These noxious gases are inhaled by the breath, and absorbed by the skin, until they enter the circulation, and impair its vivifying fluid. It is by the action of the atmospheric air that venous blood is converted into arterial, freed from all its impurities, and rendered fit to sustain all the vital functions; hence it must be at once evident that if this important agent is in the first place contaminated, its action must be impaired and its effects empoisoned. Besides, bad smells and exhalations injure the flavor of the meat.
Damp and cold floors should also be guarded against, as they tend to induce cramp and diarrhœa; and the roof so contrived as to carry off the wet from the pigs.
The walls of a well-constructed sty should be of solid masonry; the roof sloping, and furnished with spouts to carry off the rain; the floors either slightly inclined towards a gutter made to carry off the rain, or else raised from the ground on beams or joists, and perforated so that all urine and moisture shall drain off. Bricks and tiles are much used for the flooring of styes, but are objectionable, because, however well covered with litter, they still strike cold; wood is far superior in this respect; as well as because it admits of those clefts or perforations being made which we have just recommended, and which not only serve to drain off all moisture, but admit fresh air as well. The value of the litter and dung as manure, must always be borne in mind, and all things no arranged that none of it shall be wasted.
The door of each sty ought to be so hung that it will open inwards or outwards, so as to give the animals free ingress and egress; and to do this it should be hung across from side to side, and the animal push it up to effect its entry or exit; for if it were hung in the usual way it would derange the litter every time it opened inwards, and be very liable to hitch. If it is not intended that the pigs shall leave their sty, there should be an upper and lower door, the former of which should always be left open when the weather is warm and dry, while the latter will serve to confine the animal.
There should also be windows or slides which can be opened or closed at will, to give admission to the fresh air, or exclude rain or cold.
Mr. Henderson's description of his styes is more lucid and practical than mere vague directions, we will therefore give it in his own words:—"The plan which I recommend is as follows. Have a house thirty feet by fifteen, with four doors all opening outwards, and three partition walls through the house, viz., a wall between each of the doors, dividing the house into four compartments. The two middle ones I use for eating-rooms, and the others for sleeping-apartments, having an inner door between each eating and sleeping-apartment. By this plan the keeper is enabled to get the eating-chambers swept out, the troughs cleaned, and the food put into them without disturbing the swine or being disturbed by them. There should be a division wall having a door in it through each sleeping-apartment, in the hinder part should be the litter; and the front and smaller compartment, through which the animals must pass to get to their food, may be used by them as a kind of necessary, for these animals will never defile their beds if they can avoid it.
"The following is the most convenient manger for their food. Let it be as long as the house is wide, and fixed against the middle wall; in form similar to a horse manger, but not so deep, and it must be divided into twelve divisions by partition boards four feet in length or height, and a little broader than the manger is wide; thus a number will feed as well and as quietly together as two or three. Before every meal the trough should be well washed and the place swept, and once in the day a little fresh litter placed in the sleeping-chambers. Each of these sleeping and eating-rooms may be temporarily divided into two, should it be requisite. The sleeping-rooms should be dark, as animals fatten much more rapidly when they lie down and sleep after each meal than they do when they wander about. There should be a square yard to each piggery, well paved and drained, as should the styes also be; and where it is possible, an enclosure or a small piece of ground adjoining is exceedingly useful.
"Those who have space to admit of it will find it advantageous to have five apartments instead of four, and in the fifth or central one to have a boiler to prepare the food, and chests and lockers to contain the various stores."
Parkinson advises that in the yard or enclosure before every piggery should be a "rubbing-post, or, what is still more beneficial, two posts having a pole between them similar to a horse's leaping-bar, but not revolving; this pole should be raised or let down to the height of the pigs, as the rubbing of the animals against it causes a freer circulation of blood, the same as the flesh-brush does to human bodies."
In all large establishments there should be a proper apparatus for cooking, mixing, and preserving the food. For this a boiler and steamer will be requisite, and some two or three tanks which may be made of bricks plastered over on the interior to prevent leakage, and fixed in the ground. Wherever it can be managed, the troughs should be so situated that they can be filled and cleaned from the exterior without interfering with or disturbing the animals at all, and for this purpose, the following very simple contrivance has been recommended:—"Have a flap or door with swinging hinges made to hang horizontally over the trough, so that it can be moved to and fro, and alternately be fastened by a bolt to the inside or outside of the manger. When the hogs have fed sufficiently, the door is swung inwards and fastened, and so remains until feeding-time, when the trough is cleaned and refilled without any trouble, and then the flap drawn back and the animals admitted to their food." Some persons cover the trough with a lid having as many holes in it as there are pigs to eat from it. This is by no means a bad plan, for then each pig selects his own hole and eats away without interfering with or incommoding his neighbor.
We are indebted to the kindness of a friend for the following account of the Royal piggery, at the Home Farm at Windsor. It consists of an oblong slated shed, of sufficient length and breadth to contain about two dozen sties, of somewhat larger dimensions than ordinary pig-sties, and arranged in two rows with a broad walk be- tween them, from which the spectator looks into the sties on the right and left of him. Each sty has an in-door and an out-door apartment, the former having a wooden coverlid to it, going upon hinges like the lid of a cornbin, instead of a roof, which may be raised to any height in hot or close weather, so as to admit any influx of air required, or even be thrown back if necessary. The sties are paved with brick, both within and without, doors, and their floors slightly declivitous.
The following is a description of a piggery at Lascoed Pont Senny, planned and executed by Mr. J. Donaldson, land steward to A. M. Storley, Esq., Brecon, South Wales:—This piggery is constructed for the purpose of breeding and feeding on a scale to suit a farm of six hundred acres of turnip soil in an inland situation, where convenient markets render easy the disposal both of fat and lean stock. There are seven sties at the end of the steaming-house which accommodate a boar and six brood sows, which are calculated to produce yearly one hundred pigs, sixty of which will be fattened from September to April in fifteen sties, placed in two parallel rows, and made to contain two hogs in each apartment. The rest are sold as stores. The yearly rental is from 200l. to 250l. according to the prices of the produce. The steamed food consists of potatoes and meal, with grain to finish, and is conveyed to the sties along a paved road or path, in a small four-wheeled wagon. The steamer also cooks potatoes for the working horses, and chaff for milch cows, and thus applies the original cost to several purposes, and fully employs a man. The store pigs are fed in summer with clover and vetches, and in winter with roots either raw or steamed. Water is brought to the steaming-house in a pipe from the farm-yards, which are all supplied by ball-cocks from elevated casks fed by a forcing-pump. A pipe underneath conveys the water from the potato-washer to the pond in the store-yard, where it passes to the lower curve of the yard, and then meeting with the collected moisture of the whole area of the piggery, falls through an iron grate into a paved culvert, and is conveyed to the manure-pit, to which the liquid of the farmery is collected and brought by a drain; along the side of the road are sheds opening into the store-yard. The cost of erecting a piggery like this will vary from 80l. to 100l., according to the price of labor and materials, and to whether the roofs be tiled or slated. The steaming-house has an upper floor to serve as a store-house for grain, meal, roots, &c.
The piggery should always be built as near to that part of the establishment from which the chief part of provision is to come as possible, as much labor will thus be saved. If the dairy is to supply this, let it be as near as may be to that building; or if it is to come from a brewery or distillery, then let it be near to them.
Care must also be taken to preserve the dung and urine, and some place fixed in which these matters can be stored for manure. Wherever the swine are regularly and well managed, this will not be difficult, for the animals will always, if they can, lay their dung at a distance from the place where they sleep or feed. A small paved yard, somewhat sloping, and with a gutter to serve as a receptacle, will best answer this purpose, and thence it can be daily removed to the proper heap or tank.
We have been told of a gentleman who keeps only a few pigs for his own use, and has a double sty for them, by which means he is enabled to keep them exceedingly clean and sweet. Every morning the pigs are changed from one into the other, so that each sty remains unoccupied for four-and-twenty hours, during which time it is thoroughly cleaned out, and of course becomes well aired, and free from all unpleasant smell. And well do we remember the pleasure with which we used to view the pigs and sties of an old friend of ours, now no more. A door leading out of his beautiful flower-garden brought us to those equally well-tended objects of his pride. The sties were always kept whitened on the inside; the sloping floor carried off all moisture to a deep gutter running between the sty and the square-paved yard, each of which inclined towards it; a trough ever stood with water clear as crystal for them to drink, and the animals themselves were, by washing, curry combing, and perfect cleanliness about them, as neat and sleek as a lady's lap dog. They were, in fact, pet pigs. Nor are we without pleasurable reminiscences of delicate spare ribs, loins, and legs of pork, and delicious sucking-pigs.
Washings, combings, and brushings, are valuable adjuncts in the treatment of swine; the energies of the skin are thus roused and the pores opened, consequently the healthful functions are aided, and that inertness so likely to be engendered by the lazy life of a fattening pig counteracted. We cannot close this chapter without quoting the following account of the mode of keeping pigs in Mexico:—
"Fine breeds of these useful animals are kept by many persons of wealth, as an article of trade, in the city of Mexico; and the care and attention paid to their cleanliness and comfort so far exceed any thing I have seen elsewhere, that a short account may be useful by furnishing hints to our farmers, brewers, distillers, &c., by whom large numbers of these valuable animals could be and are conveniently kept. The premises where the business is carried on are extensive, consisting in general of a good dwelling-house, with a shop, slaughter-house, and places for singeing the pigs, large bowls for rendering the lard, salting and drying-rooms, and lard-rooms, with wooden bins for containing the rendered fat, which is an article of great consumption in Spanish cookery, being used as a substitute for butter. There is also a soap manufactory, in which the offal fat is manufactured, and apartments where the blood is made into a kind of black-pudding, and sold to the poor. Behind all these are the sties for the hogs, generally from eight hundred to one thousand in number, which occupy a considerable range of well-built sheds about thirty feet deep, with the roofs descending very low, and having the entrance through low arches, before which is an open space the whole length of the yard, and about twenty-four feet wide, in the centre of which is a kind of aqueduct built of stone, and filled with clear water supplied from a well at the end of the premises. The hogs can only put their noses into this water through holes in the wall, which prevents their dirtying it, as it passes through the whole division of the yard. This is the only liquid given them, and their food is maize or Indian corn, slightly moistened, and scattered at stated hours on the ground, which in the yard, as well as the place where they sleep, is kept perfectly dry and clean. They are attended by Indians with every possible care. There is a cold bath on the premises, which they are obliged frequently to use, as cleanliness is considered essential to their acquiring that enormous load of fat from which the principal profit is derived. Their ease and comfort seem also in every respect to be studiously attended to; and the occupation of two Indian lads will cause a smile on the countenances of my musical readers, when they are informed that they are employed from morning till night in settling any disputes or little bickerings that may arise among the happy inhabitants of this community, either in respect to rank or condition, and in singing them to sleep. The boys are chosen for the strength of their lungs, and their taste and judgment in delighting the ears and lulling the senses of this amiable harmonic society; they succeed each other in chanting during the whole day, to the great delight and gratification of their bristly audience, who seem fully to appreciate the merits of the performers." Martin says:—
"Any place is thought good enough for a pig, no matter how dark, damp, or filthy it may be, and in such places we have seen pigs kept. But what has been the consequence? Diseases of the skin, swellings of the joints, dullness, and loss of eager, healthy appetite; often, after being slaughtered, the intestines are found infested by parasitic worms. So far from any place being good enough for a pig, much of the animal's health and ultimate profitableness depend on the domicile in which it is kept. For those who keep only one or two pigs, a well-built wind and waterproof sty or shed for a dormitory, in an inclosure for air and exercise as large as convenient, will suffice. The feeding-trough should be made of stone, as wooden troughs are liable to be gnawed, and are often knocked over when half full of food by the snout of the pig, either by accident or in wantonness. It would be well also to give the animal access to a stone receptacle of clean water; for though much water should not be given to a pig during the progress of fattening, still the animal should never be allowed to suffer from thirst; nothing tends more than thrist to derange the digestive organs, and prevent the animal from thriving. The floor of the whole sty and yard should be well paved with brick, and incline to a drain, both for the sake of dryness and facility of cleaning. The manure, liquid as well as more solid, should be put into a manure-pit for the future benefit of the garden. A sufficient quantity of straw should be spread on the floor of the dormitory, and all should be clean, even the trough, which should be washed out every day. The door should be made to open inwards; otherwise, if not very strongly secured, it is liable to be forced open by the animal, and much mischief may be done in the garden before any one is aware of it. Pigs are very fond of rubbing their sides and shoulders against convenient objects, and this, as it excites the circulation of the blood in the vessels of the skin, is very beneficial; hence, a short stout post driven into the ground, by one of the side walls of the little yard or inclosure, would be a serviceable and unexpensive addition. The sty should not be exposed to the cold, damp winds; at the same time, it should be shaded from the mid-day glare of a hot summer's sun. Such a sty as we have described, a cottager may build for himself: it will cost little, excepting his own labor. His objects are the comfort of the animal, and the saving of the manure; and the latter object, in particular, is too often neglected, as is also the cleanliness of the sty altogether.
"The above remarks apply more especially to the cottager, but are not quite applicable, excepting as far as principle goes, to the farmer, who finds it profitable to keep many pigs, or the brewer, or distiller, or milk-merchant, upon whose establishments great numbers of these animals are kept. The farmer may find a range of simple styes similar to what we have just described to be convenient, with larger accommodations for breeding sows, and an exclusive and well-secured domicile for the boar. The young pigs, and porkers, with the sows, will have the advantage of a farm-yard or large straw-yard, in which they may indulge themselves according to their natural instincts. They must of course be stied up for fattening; but before this process commences they may be turned into the cut wheat fields in autumn, or into the oak copses (if there be such,) not however without being under surveillance. The air and the moderate exercise taken in searching for a scanty but excellent kind of food, will render their repast when driven home in the afternoon most acceptable. The farmer, however, and the brewer or milk-merchant (we mean the great milk-dealers in the neighborhood of London,) are differently situated. In the latter cases, a well-arranged series of airy, cleanly styes is imperative, especially for pigs above the size of sucklings, for even in such establishments the latter may be allowed some degree of liberty. System and order should prevail. There should be a proper place in which to mix and boil the food, with one or more large coppers and straining apparatus. The food should be mixed in square brick tanks, sunk in the ground and cemented, in order that no filtration of the more fluid parts may take place. If there is only one tank there should be a partition in it. From the boiling-house there should be an immediate communication with the styes, under cover if possible—but an out-house close to the styes, with a loft, for roots, &c.. may be made available. Each sty should open into a small yard behind, inclosed with a low wall or paling, but with a strong door. There should be separate styes for breeding sows, for porkers, and fattening hogs. Not more than three or four of the latter should be in one sty. The food should be given in troughs, in a separate compartment from that in which the hogs lie down, and no litter should be allowed there. The floor should be of brick or stone; should be frequently washed clean, and the troughs should be cleaned out before every meal. Any of the food left from the last meal should be taken out and given to the store pigs. A very convenient contrivance for keeping the troughs clean is to have a flap or door made with hinges, so that it can swing, and alternately be fastened by a bolt to the inside or outside edge of the trough. When the hogs have fed sufficiently, the door is swung in, and the trough easily cleaned out. It remains on the inside till feeding time, when the food is poured in without any impediment from the greedy hogs, who cannot get at it till the door is swung out. This simple contrivance saves a great deal of trouble, and is easily adapted to any common sty. It is a great advantage to be able to inspect the styes without going into them; and this is effected by placing them under a common roof, which may conveniently be a lean-to to the boiling-house or any other building, with a passage between them.
"Where numerous pigs are kept, it will be advantageous to have a double row of styes, with a paved alley between them; there should be good drainage, by which all refuse is carried off to a manure-pit, and the greatest cleanliness should be maintained. Six breeding sows, giving each two litters per annum, will produce yearly upwards of a hundred pigs; of these, fifty or sixty may be fattened at the latter part of autumn, through the winter, and during the months of February and March, for bacon; the younger brood may be killed as porkers, or sold off as stores. With respect to the steaming apparatus, it will be found available for other animals on the farm, as horses, &c., to which steamed potatoes and other roots may be profitably allowed.
"The breeding sows should be kept each by itself in a large and commodious sty, and the store and fattening pigs should have their respective tenements. Some recommend that the floor of the sleeping-shed be made of planks, as bricks are cold and apt to induce cramp or diarrhœa; certainly wood is preferable to bricks. Where bricks are used, they should be set in cement, in order that no filtration may take place through the interstices, and thereby keep the soil underneath in a state of wetness, whence noxious gases will necessarily arise and generate disease, to the great loss of the farmer. Another thing is desirable, namely, that the roof of the sty, whether composed of slates, tiles, or slabs of stone, should have a gutter in order to carry off the rain; this may be easily contrived, and at little expense, and will often keep the sty from being flooded,"—Martin.