It was a very interesting study to follow the resulting outbreaks; but a very serious matter for the owner and for that entire portion of the state. Practically every farmer who bought hogs at this sale, and very many of those who walked around the yards looking at the hogs, but without buying, had hog cholera on their farms in a very uniform period after the sale. Surely the moral of this tale is so self-evident as to need no further suggestion.
=Cleaning Up.=--Troughs and feeding floors, at least, and, if practicable, the hog house also, should be kept clean and frequently disinfected during an outbreak. When the outbreak appears to be over, the owner must decide as to just what he will do in the way of disinfection and cleaning up, or whether he will stay out of the hog business for a year and allow the infection to die out. This is, of course, without regard for the possibility of putting in vaccinated and immune hogs. Feeding troughs and feeding floors and the hog house in general, may be disinfected if of reasonably good construction, by a thorough cleaning and then by one of the methods suggested under prevention. If the sick hogs have been kept in an old straw shed or in an old hog house that is about ready to fall down anyway, by all means the best method of disinfection is by burning. Without disinfection or burning the owner cannot be safe in putting in susceptible hogs within much less than a year after the last hog died or recovered. The slow old chronic cases that go dragging around at the end of an outbreak should usually be killed and safely buried, for it is rarely profitable to put such hogs in shape for market. It might possibly be worth while to hold such a one over and nurse them along, in case of valuable brood sows, for hogs having recovered from cholera are usually immune for life.
Brood sows which have had the disease and recovered usually give something more than natural immunity to their offspring. But the degree of immunity so conferred is so variable in degree and uncertain otherwise that it cannot be depended upon as a routine method of establishing immune herds. Yards may be practically disinfected by plowing or by burning off a good layer of straw.