Page:The Hog.djvu/191

189 Small meals, and many of them, are preferable to few and large ones, for swine are very apt to gorge and over-eat themselves, or, if any be left in the trough, to return to it by fits and starts until it is all gone; in both cases the digestive functions are impaired, and the process is not fully and beneficially performed. The best remedy for indigestion is to let the animals fast for four-and-twenty hours, and then to give them a small quantity of dry food, as barley or peas, whole and salted, and let them fast four or five hours more before resuming their usual food.

Pigs always eat more when first put up to fatten than they do afterwards; therefore the most nutritious food should be reserved until they are getting pretty fat. And at that period the food must be varied, for the appetite being diminished, it becomes necessary to excite it by variety; and, besides, the same aliment constantly given palls upon the stomach, and is incapable of supplying in itself all the various kinds of nutriment required by the increased and altered state of the body.

It will be found advantageous occasionally to mingle a little sulphur or powdered antimony with the food of swine put up to fatten; about half an ounce once in ten days will usually be sufficient. These medicines tend to purify the blood, facilitate digestion, and maintain the appetite.

An American writer states that he has found gall-nuts, bruised and mingled with charcoal, to act most beneficially on the health of swine while being fattened; and also recommends that they should always be allowed to root in the earth of a small yard attached to the sty each day, and, if they will, eat some of the earth, which will be good for them. An intelligent writer in the "Quarterly Journal of Agriculture" states, that on the Duke of Montrose's estate, the pigs have ashes and cinders given them occasionally to correct the acidity of the stomach; and that they are frequently turned out to a piece of ground sprinkled with lime, which they root in and eat; or else, if this is not possible on account of the weather, a little magnesia is now and then mingled in the milk. These simple precautions are always more or less necessary to animals that are highly fed and have little or no exercise, and we should recommend them to the attention of all owners of pigs.

Cleanliness is another indispensable requisite. There is no idea so utterly without foundation as the common one "that pigs love dirt," and that these animals thrive best in the midst of filth. We will quote one anecdote out of the many which have come to our knowledge, in refutation of this absurd opinion:—"A gentleman in Norfolk put up six pigs of almost exactly equal weight, and all in equal health, to fatten; treated them, with one exception, all exactly the same, and fed them on similar food, given in equal quantities, to each, for seven weeks. Three of these pigs were left to shift for