The Pig Farmer's Veterinary Book - A Complete Guide to the Farm Treatment and Control of Pig Diseases
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The Pig Farmer's Veterinary Book - A Complete Guide to the Farm Treatment and Control of Pig Diseases - Norman Barron
THE
PIG FARMER’S VETERINARY
BOOK
A complete guide to the farm treatment
and control of pig diseases
By
NORMAN BARRON, M.R.C.V.S., Ph.D.
Veterinary Lecturer at Reading University
1952
CONTENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS
Anatomy of a sow
Three improvised pig houses
Pigs in semi-covered yards
Straw huts for sows and gilts
Straw-packed walls for warmth
False low roof in pig house
Maximum and minimum thermometer
Plan for modern pighouse
Three methods of insulating floors
Warming up an Anderson shelter
Wrong type of pighouse and sty
Modern pig parlour
Simple shelters for baby pigs
How to catch a young pig
Restraining a grown pig
Method of penning young pigs
Restraining a difficult pig
Using wooden gag to give medicine
Casting a pig
Graph of female sex cycle
Serving crate
Sows and litters on grass
Creep feeding with self feeder
Concrete serving ramp
Washing a sow before farrowing
Wooden farrowing crate
Modern farrowing pen
Plan of pig nursery
to prevent losses
Infra-red lamps in farrowing pen
A contented sow and litter
Artificial foster mother
Method of castration
Clipping a piglet’s teeth
Dosing a baby pig with iron solution
Pig suffering from vitamin D deficiency
A case of pig oedema
The common pig worm—life cycle
The lung worm of the pig—life cycle
Bowel and stomach changes through necrotic enteritis
Pigs affected with necrotic enteritis
Round worms
Portion of bowel blocked with round worms
Erysipelas infection of the heart
Foul-in-the-foot
Soft floor conditions result in over-grown hooves
Laburnum
Thornapple
Yew
Garden nightshade
Deadly nightshade
Woody nightshade
Foxglove
Hemlock
Monkshood
Buttercup
Horse-tail
Water dropwort
FOREWORD
By SIR JAMES TURNER
President of the National Farmers’ Union
of England and Wales
THE best hope we have for producing more meat’in the immediate future lies in pig production. It is therefore important that pig-keepers should produce this meat in as great a quantity and as economically as possible. One big step towards this economy would be to cut down substantially the losses now suffered by farmers as a result of pig diseases.
The fact that the pig population is already high makes the need to keep disease under control more urgent, and for this reason this book by a veterinary expert is to be welcomed as a timely production.
If it helps to bring about a high standard of health in pig herds, and produce more bacon and pork, it will not only be of practical value to producers, but also perform a service which all interested in home food production will appreciate.
45, Bedford Square,
London, W.C. I
AUTHOR’S PREFACE
THE losses which the pig industry suffers today are far too heavy. These are due to a number of factors, not the least of which is our relative ignorance of the environmental conditions necessary for full health and maximum growth. What knowledge and experience we have appears to be possessed by all too few. Perhaps this book will help to remedy this defect to some extent.
It is not meant to replace the veterinary surgeon on the farm, as of course in the control of any disease, a proper diagnosis is the first essential. Clinical symptoms may be confusing and faulty treatment may be introduced if this is not correct, but an understanding of the possibilities regarding treatment, should encourage help to be sought with greater confidence. Emphasis throughout the book, however, is upon the environmental conditions which play so vital a part in connection with keeping an animal so artificially reared as the pig usually is.
Many chance remarks by pigmen and farmers, together with the assistance of my veterinary colleagues, have proved invaluable in enabling me to compile this book and to all these, I would like to express my thanks.
N. S. BARRON,
Reading University
CHAPTER I
PREVENTION THE BEST CURE
PERHAPS at no time in the history of this country have pigs been so important as they are now. At this date of publication (1952) we have in Great Britain a record population of pigs—more than have been recorded in any previous year. They represent the best chance we have of increasing the nation’s meat supplies quickly.
Success will depend largely upon proper management of these pigs. It is not only essential that they should be fed as cheaply as possible but also that they should be kept in good health so that preventable losses (and most of them are preventable) are reduced to a minimum.
In the pages that follow we shall consider how this latter aim in particular can be achieved.
COST OF DISEASE
The cost of disease in livestock is considerable. It is said to cost farmers in England and Wales alone over £1,000,000 every week.
Its cost to pig-keepers is very heavy. Not only is there the loss, very often, of the animals, but there is loss of time and labour, and food that could be better spent on healthy stock. Statistical surveys have shown that of all the pigs bred in this country, some 30 per cent. die before they reach marketing age.
To lose one pig out of every three born is a severe handicap to profitable pig-keeping. Yet most of this loss can be prevented. It is a matter of good management.
Pigs, given access to what they need and would get under natural conditions, seldom fail to thrive. Such things as proper feeding, warmth and shelter are as essential to pigs as they are to us.
Attention to details is the mark of a good herdsman. Some farmers say that a herdsman is born and not made, but it is not true; the necessary details of management can be learnt by a keen man.
To those who seek to make pig-keeping their livelihood or a profitable sideline, or to take charge of herds, this book is primarily addressed, and my first lesson is a simple one. It is that it is far better to prevent disease than to cure it.
FIRST SIGN OF TROUBLE
This is where your skilled herdsman comes in. When feeding pigs his first thought is to see all of them are eating heartily and none lying in a corner or under the straw. He is alert for the first sign of trouble. Measures taken then are likely to be the least costly and the most effective.
He will follow certain basic rules that are common to all successful pig-keepers. He will be careful neither to feed too much nor too little, both of which can cause loss. He will adjust his feeding to weather conditions and to the different individual requirements of his pigs. In brief, he makes a thorough study of his job.
All these management details, followed as a matter of course by the skilled man, help to prevent the unthriftiness and low condition of health which lead inevitably to some form of disease and often to inexplicable deaths and serious loss in a herd.