REARING PIGS IN MOVABLE PENS

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 22 July 1915, Page 3

REARING PIGS IN MOVABLE PENS

M. Hvekeoaabd, Buenos Aires, from the Bulletin of the International Institute of Agriculture :

The writer has obtained very good results in the Argentine with a system of rearing pigs in movable pens ; he has obtained an average of twelve pigs per sow per annum with a herd Of 1,000 SOWS.

Tho pen measures 9ft 9in by 6ft 6in, and is 2ft 9in high; it is made of six 2in by Sin uprights, to which are nailed four rows of I in by 3in bars, 7^-in apart ; shelter is provided by a piece of corrugated iron at one end sloping from tho top bar to the second bar and by two other pieces fixed, to the lower three bars below it. The 77,iu space allows the young pigs to pass to and fro. A trough'of o-gallons capacity is placed in each pen. The cost of such a pen does not exceed 15 pesos (about '275).

The pens are placed in lucernefields 20 yards apart, in rows 120 yards apart. Litters of different ages should not be allowed in the same row, or the biggar ones will enter the peus of the younger ones and interfere with their sucking. When breeding is carried out all through the year, 100 pens are sufficient for 300 sows. After the pigs are weaned the sows are allowed to pasture with tho boar (one boar for each 25 to '30 sows), and the sows near farrowing are removed to the pens each w reck.