For the pig club boys and girls starting in to raise two litters in a year, a good, cheap and easily constructed pen is described as follows in Lippincott’s “Productive Swine Husbandry”;
“The pen is sixteen feet long and eight feet wide. It is seven feet high in front and three and one-half feet high at the rear. It is boarded with cheap lumber, but all cracks are securely battened. It should be practically wind and rain proof. The opening should be a small door in the southeast corner, as the house faces the south. Plenty of bedding should be supplied, and the pen should be banked up outside with fresh horse manure to a depth of about two feet in order to prevent drafts about the floor.”
4. =Records.= During the winter months do not fail to make all records and keep all accounts of operations, work, expenses, results, etc., that are called for on the record pages of this book.
5. =Reference reading and study.= Read your texts, the farm papers, and any reference books available on the problems of feeding, housing, care and management of growing pigs. Consult experienced swine breeders and feeders and learn all you can from them that will help you to succeed with your pigs.
1. =Breeding the sow for the second litter.= If an April litter of pigs is desired, the sow should be bred during the month of December or early January. Breed to a pure-bred boar if possible. Keep record of dates.
2. =Feeding continued.= Just as we use lumber, brick, cement, shingles, nails, etc. in the proper form and proportion in building a house, so must we use milk, corn, oats, grass or other feeds in the building of the body of the hog or any other animal. Each feed is made up of different food nutrients, and each food nutrient serves a definite purpose in the body. Some of the food nutrients are used in the animal body to make bone, others for fat, and still others for the manufacture of active muscular tissue. Development will be incomplete if any class of food material is neglected; hence the necessity of a balanced ration.
Follow carefully the feeding standards and rations suggested for November and December.
3. =Keeping the pigs healthy.= It is much easier to keep pigs healthy than it is to cure sick ones. Clean, dry quarters, proper feed, plenty of sunlight and ventilation, and disinfection of houses will help to keep pigs healthy.