THE MANAGEMENT OF BROOD SOWS.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2254, 19 May 1881, Page 4

THE MANAGEMENT OF BROOD SOWS.

A brood sow should be a good milker. An abundance of milk for the first eight or ten weeks of their existence is the best preparation young pigs can have to fit them for profitable growth in after life. It is not always possible (says an American writer) to decide with certainty whether or not a young sow will prove to be a good milker; but as with cows, so with pigs, we may leam from observation and trial to know in some degree, judging from their general appearance, what to expect. Milking qualities in swine are as surely transmisoablo to progeny as in cattle. Thus it is as true of swine as of cattle that this trait may bo greatly improved by retaining only good milkers for breeders. When they have dropped their first litter, tho most they will need for the first five or eight days will be cooling drinks and very little rich food. Wheat bran, scalded and then thinned with cold water, to which may be added a handful of middlings, may be given. In ten days or two weeks the richness of the food may bo gradually increased, great care being taken, however, both as to the quality and quantity, that these changes may not injure tho health of the sow, or so affect her milk ns to cause scours in tho pigs. It is a very common mistake in feeding sows having young pigs to give them too much strong food when the pigs are quite young. It is not until the pigs are some three or four weeks old that they really begin to tax tho sow heavily. Then it is that the sow should bo liberally and regularly fed on good nutritious milk-producing food, and at the same time the young pigs should be taught to feed by themselves at a trough out of the roach of tho sow. If thus managed both sow and pigs are benefited. The strength of tho former is kept up, and her disposition to produce an abundance of good rich milk is so encouraged as to fix this as one of the boat traits of her nature, while the pigs by the extra food given them moke a corresponding rapid growth, and that atja comparatively small cost. Young sows brought up in tho manner suggested, and thus oared for with their first litters, may be depended upon to do as well or better with their next, provided they have anything like fair treatment. In case, however, a sow fails to prove herself a good milker, after a ra r trial, she should be replaced by one of better promise, unless for some special purpose it is thought best to retain her.