All about Pigs & Pig-Keeping - 800 Questions and Answers

Various

Description

“All About Pigs & Pig-Keeping” contains almost all the information one might want to know about pigs and related subjects. Presented as a series of over 800 questions and answers split into helpful sections, this volume is sure to be of utility to farmers and pig owners alike. Contents Include: “Breeding”, “Breeding for Bacon”, “Sow's Breeding Life”, “Feeding”, “Animal Protein”, “Antibiotics”, “Artificial Rearing”, “Housing”, “Equipment”, “Fattening”, “Houses”, “Management”, “Bad Habits”, “Crops and Cropping”, “Ear Marking and Ringing”, “Veterinary Abnormalities”, “Abnormal Behaviour”, “Abortion”, “Boar Troubles”, etc. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition complete with a specially-commissioned new introduction on the history of farming.

Sujets

• Agronomie
• Agronomy for Sustainable Development
• Agriculture
• Engineering
• Technology
• Sciences et techniques
• Animal Husbandry

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 11 mars 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781446545201
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

ALL ABOUT PIGS
ALL ABOUT PIGS
800 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
PIG PUBLICATIONS LIMITED LLOYDS CHAMBERS, IPSWICH 1955

Contents
1 BREEDING
Berkshire breed - breeding for bacon - breeding from gilts - breeding replacements - farrowing - first-cross gilts - grazing breeds - keeping a boar - Large White breed - Large White/Essex cross - Large White/Wessex cross - Large White/G.O.S. cross - line breeding - second-cross gilts - service problems - sows breeding life - starting a herd - Tamworth cross - Welsh/Large White cross - Welsh/Wessex cross - Welsh cross
2 FEEDING
Acorns - animal protein - antibiotics - apples - artichokes - artificial rearing - bakery waste - barley meal - bran - breeding stock - brewers grains - brewers grains and waste flour - brussels sprouts - buttermilk - carrots - carrots and turnips - cereals - cod-liver oil - compounds - creep mixtures - dates - dredge mixtures - dried grass - dry feeding - eggs - feeding methods - feeding scales - fertilizers - fish meal - fish meal substitutes - fish offal and potatoes - fodder beet - fodder beet and whey - goats milk - grazing - groundnut - hatchery waste - home-mixed rations - in-pig gilts - Lehmann system - linseed oil - lucerne - maize - mangolds - mangolds and beans - mangolds, swedes and whey - meal feeding - meal analysis - meal requirements - milk - milk powder - minerals - minerals and vitamins - mixed corn - nettles - nuts - oats - oyster shell - potatoes - protein - Russian comfrey - rye - separated milk - silage - skim milk - skim milk and potatoes - skim milk powder - skim milk and toppings - sour milk - spinach - sugar beet - sugar beet pulp - sugar beet pulp and tops - swedes - swill - turnips - vegetable protein - waste foods - water - weatings - wet feeding - whey - yeast - miscellaneous
3 HOUSING
Dual-purpose houses - equipment - farrowing houses - fattening houses - floor construction - general-purpose houses - housing the boar - insulation - materials to use - outdoor huts and shelters - roof construction - straw houses - useful measurements - ventilation - yards - miscellaneous
4 MANAGEMENT
Bad habits - crops and cropping - deep-litter system - earmarking and ringing - electric fencing - equipment - fighting - grading - grazing - handling of pigs - indoor pig-keeping - in-pig sow - legal points - managing the boar - marketing - outdoor pig-keeping - profit factors - rules and regulations - show preparation - silage - sow and litter - starting pig-keeping - useful tables - wage and bonus schemes - weighing and recording - miscellaneous
5 VETERINARY
Abnormalities - abnormal behaviour - abortion - boar troubles - castration - dosing and injections - ear troubles - erysipelas - farrowing troubles - general disorders - lameness and foot troubles - litter sizes - loss of milk - oedema - parasites ( external ) - parasites ( internal ) - piglet troubles - poisoning - respiratory diseases - rhinitis - skin troubles - sow and gilt troubles - swine fever - tuberculosis udder troubles - miscellaneous
List of Illustrations
Ex-universal building converted into piggery
Deep-litter piggery
Farrowing and rearing house
Cowshed converted into dual-purpose piggery
Dutch barn with lean-to dual-purpose piggery
Piglet nest
Farrowing crate
Farrowing crate for Large Whites
Wooden self-feeder
Creep-trough divisions
Creep feeder
Weighing crate
Weighing crate for use on spring balance
Built-in self-feeder
Stable converted into farrowing house
Craibstone farrowing ark
Outdoor farrowing hut
Farrowing platform
Apex-type farrowing ark
Loose-box used for farrowing
Detachable farrowing rails
Lean-to roof over farrowing-house yards
Lean-to pen against existing building
Swing-front type of trough
Simple type of fattening house
Fattening house with McGuckian-type feeding-trough
Small Danish piggery
Danish-type piggery
Easy-to-build sty
Fattening house for 10 to 15 pigs
Corrugated-iron shed converted into piggery
Cart shed converted into piggery
Accommodation for 32 pigs
Dutch barn conversion
McGuckian trough
Nissen hut conversion
Cowshed converted into fattening house
Cheap pighouse
All-purpose house for pigs
Insulating plasterboard wall
Straw hut
Sow shelter
Shelter made from ex-WD ammunition shelter sheets
McGuckian-type hut
Standard earmarking pattern
Poisonous plants
Foreword
By the EDITOR of PIG FARMING
T HE success of Pig Farming since it was first published has had one somewhat embarrassing result.
We have had so many questions from readers that it has never been possible to print more than a very small fraction of the answers to them in the columns of the paper itself.
Naturally, these are not academic questions but real problems that crop up continually in the daily round of pig-farming practice. With the answers to them-from men who are acknowledged experts in their subjects-they provide information hitherto unpublished and of great practical value to pig farmers generally.
Instead of restricting the spread of such information to postal replies to individual enquirers, it seems only common sense to give at least some of it a wider circulation.
This book is the means of doing so. It is as comprehensive as any book tackling so vast a subject can be expected to be. It has behind it the knowledge and experience of our advisory staff. It is really a pig farmer s encyclopaedia at a popular price.
For ease of reference all this information is presented in sections and in alphabetical order.
Obviously, there are bound to be some omissions. Readers of the book who have a pig-keeping problem not dealt with in its pages are invited to write to Pig Farming, Lloyds Chambers, Ipswich, Suffolk , enclosing a stamped, addressed envelope for a reply by post. We will do our best to help.
1 Breeding
BERKSHIRE BREED
Breeding and Fattening
I want to keep a breed for either pork or bacon production; I am not interested in selling weaners. I wish to graze the breeding stock as much as possible. Would you suggest I keep Berkshires?
As you wish to breed and finish pigs for pork or bacon, I do not think it advisable to go in for Berkshires. If your policy was to be pork only, then there might be some advantage in choosing this breed. As you probably realize, under the present price structure the most profit is made on the grade A pig which weighs as near 8 sc. 10 lb. as possible.
Another point: Berkshires are not over-prolific. There are good strains, of course, but the breed as a whole is of low average. When crossed with a Tamworth a very suitable bacon carcass can be obtained, but little is known of the conversion rate.
I think it would be safer (until you are established) to keep the popular Large White or Wessex. But whichever you finally choose, make a point of buying only those animals from parents whose records show they are worthy to keep for breeding purposes. Records of immediate ancestors are extremely important, otherwise it is truly buying a pig in a poke .
BREEDING FOR BACON
For Grade A Carcasses
I am going in for bacon production and wonder what type and breed of sow to keep .
There are good and bad strains in every breed. The essential points in a sow are docility and ability to breed and rear first-grade bacon. According to the N.P.B.A., the Wessex Saddleback rears the largest litters and, in my opinion, the Wessex sow mated to a Large White or Welsh boar produces grade A bacon.
White Boar on Coloured Sows
Do you advise using a Large White boar on Wessex, Essex or Large Black sows?
You can gain many advantages by crossing with a Large White boar. The cross-bred pigs are excellent for bacon provided that the parents were good in that respect. Seedy cut is very rarely found in these crosses.
Number of Sows to Keep
How many breeding sows would I have to keep to turn out 500 to 600 bacon pigs per year? And how many boars for this number of sows?
A safe estimate is to reckon on selling 12 bacon pigs per sow per year. Allowing for replacements to the breeding herd, 50 sows would then be needed for 600 baconers. Two boars would be required.
Coloured Boar and White Sows
Why is the use of a coloured boar on a white pig not recommended? I have just had a good litter of Wessex purebreds, and would like to use one of the boars on my Large White sows .
The object of crossing two different breeds is to have in the progeny the best qualities of both the parents. Good-quality bacon is the ultimate end, but economic production is also a vital factor. Black pigs are noted for their ability to rear large litters economically, whereas the white pig is the recognized bacon producer. Therefore the black female and white males are used. If the process is reversed you immediately lose the advantages of economically-reared large litters, and the bacon factories fancy for the white bacon carcass is also liable to be lost.
Spotty Pigs
I have a pure-bred Large White boar which I have been putting on my Essex and Wessex sows. I am getting black and white spotty pigs. My neighbour says that his all come as pure white or with touches of blue, but not black. Can it be the fault of the boar?
Normally the mating of a pure-bred Large White boar with Wessex or Large Black sows results in white pigs with blue markings. That in your case this has not happened merely proves that in the past breeding of either the sows or the boar there is some factor at work which is not usually present.
If the particular boar you are using invariably sires pigs with black markings when mated to ordinary Wessex and Large Black sows, I think it would be safe to infer that at some point in his ancestry, there has occurred an impure white mating.
The simplest way to satisfy yourself about this is to borrow another white boar for use on a few of the sows which have already produced black and white or black-spotted pigs. It would only be in the unlikely event of these matings a