Page:The Hog.djvu/202

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
200
THE HOG.

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 conve-