Sow

“ You will be very fortunate if your young sow's first litter numbers ten or a dozen lively youngsters. Six or eight will not be bad if she raises them all, and with care she ought to. Improper care and feeding before the pigs come are usually responsible for any cannibalistic habits developed by the sow. Corn alone is not a good ration except for fattening. Used with wheat, middlings, bran, and ground oats, with plenty of clover or alfalfa hay, corn is all right. The sow should be put into a pen by herself before farrowing time. ”

“ There is a marked difference in the formation of a milk-giving and a fat-producing sow—the latter is generally somewhat heavy in the shoulders, has a muscular or fat neck, is rather short in the head and heavy in the jowl, and is altogether more compactly built, whereas a good brood sow has rather a long face, is wide between the eyes, has a light muscular neck, is fine in the shoulders, possesses long and square quarters and appears to be heavier in the hind than in the forequarters. She is somewhat more loosely built and often shows less of quality. ”

“ Where there is an outlet, the sow will, indeed, keep herself by grazing in summer, with a little wash to help her out: and when her pigs come, they are many in number; but they are a heavy expense. The sow must live as well as a fatting hog, or the pigs will be good for little. ”

“ In a breeding sow, this quality is essential, and it is one which is inherited. Besides this, she should be a careful mother. A young, untried sow will generally display in her tendencies those which have predominated in the race from which she has descended. ”

“ This sow had been among the wounded pigs, but perfectly recovered. Escorted my little flock of sheep to the flat, keeping a sharp look-out for natives, with a good supply of balls in my pocket, but saw none of them: nor was I fasting altogether on this day, having had two eggs and some goat's butter at breakfast. But my cow, like Mrs. Shandy's, "puts off calving terribly." I shall soon have cauliflowers and turnips for dinner; in short, we shall all soon have an abundance of everything; and as to wheat, it will be so plentiful that we must see about mills of some kind or other. ”

“ The qualities of a sow are, that she breeds pigs and do not devour her young ones. The seller must also warrant her sound against the quinsy for three days and nights after she is sold. If she should not possess these qualities, one third of her price must be returned. The value of a boar is equal to the value of three sows. ”

“ The trouble if any, which arises from the owner or pig man being in the sty with the farrowing sow almost invariably arises from the absence of a sympathetic feeling between the two. Sows, and indeed wellnigh all animals, pine for sympathy and company, and no animal more so than a pig. Still there are very occasional instances where the young sow becomes very excitable as she commences to farrow even when she and her owner or attendant have previously been on the best of terms. But there the cause is not the presence of a human being, but the arrival of one of her own little pigs. ”

“ The wild sow is remarkably prolific; she often breeds twice in the year, and bears from four to eight and sometimes even twelve young; but the domestic sow regularly breeds twice a year, and would breed oftener if permitted; and a sow that produces less than eight at a birth “is worth little, and the sooner she is fattened for the butcher the better.” The amount of food affects the fertility of the same individual: thus sheep, which on mountains never produce more than one lamb at a birth, when brought down to lowland pastures frequently bear twins. ”

“ When a sow is weakly, and has not a sufficiency of milk, the young pigs must be taught to feed as early as possible. A kind of gruel, made of skim-milk and bran, or oatmeal, is a good thing for this purpose, or potatoes, boiled and then mashed in milk or whey, with or without the addition of a little bran or oatmeal. Toward the period when the pigs are to be weaned, the sow must be less plentifully fed, otherwise the secretion of milk will be as great as ever; it will, besides, accumulate, and there will be hardness, and perhaps inflammation of the teats. ”

“ It is impossible to agree with the view held by so many persons that the necessity for the same care is non-existent in the selection of a sow as in the choice of a boar. We hold that the desirability for studying the forbears, especially the dam, of a young sow intended for breeding purposes is fully as great as when selecting the young boar, since many, if not most, of the qualities which we desire the brood sow to possess are strongly hereditary. ”

“ On going up to a farm-house one is sometimes obliged to get round or step over a pig lying comfortably in the path. One day, going to call on some friends who had taken lodgings at a small farm, I found a portly sow lying in the way a dozen yards or so from the front door. ”

“ All the species of the sow-bread may be propagated by their seeds; and the respective varieties, by dividing their roots: they require a light, dry soil; and to be planted in borders of walks: in case of severe frost, the plants should be sheltered by mats.
In a fresh state, the root of the sow-bread has an extremely acrid and burning taste ”

“ Each sow should suckle her pigs in her own stye, because a sow will not drive strange pigs away from her, and it results that if the litters are mingled the breed deteriorates. The year is naturally divided for the sow into two parts, because they breed twice a year, being heavy in pig for four months and suckling for two. ”

“ A sow ought not to be permitted to suckle her pigs more than two or three weeks, after which eight or nine only should be left with her, the rest sold, or sent to market, or killed for use—at the age of three weeks they are fit for eating, if the sow is well fed. ”

“ A good sow should produce a great number of pigs, all of equal vigor. She must be very careful of them, and not crush them by her weight; above all, she must not be addicted to eating the after-birth, and, what may often follow, her own young. If a sow is tainted with those bad habits, or if she has difficult labors, or brings forth dead pigs, she must be spayed forthwith. It is, therefore, well to [270 (32) ] bring up several young sows at once, so as to keep those only which are free from defects. Breeding sows and boars should never be raised from defective animals. ”

“ Not only is this necessary to ensure the rearing of a fairly numerous litter of pigs in a satisfactory manner, but it is held that the number of teats possessed by a sow indicates to a remarkable extent the probable degree of prolificacy of the sow. One can readily understand that nature would not be likely to endow a sow with the power to produce a larger number of young at each birth than she would be able to rear. ”

“ A breeding sow should never be overfed; not that she should be starved—on the contrary, she should be kept by a judicious allowance of food, in good condition and perfect health, but not fat. A sow when fat is not likely to be fertile, and, moreover, her parturition is sure to be more difficult and dangerous, and her milk in insufficient quantity, perhaps even of inferior quality, while her unwieldiness renders her more liable to overlay her young. ”

“ When there exists a good understanding between the sow and attendant, as there invariably is when the latter is not rough and unkind, as only bad tempered men can be, the trouble in a case such as just referred to is greatly reduced, as the attendant runs no risk in entering the sty and in removing the little pigs as they arrive, and placing them in a hamper or box partially filled with straw until such time as the sow has completed her farrowing, when the pigs can be placed against the sow's udder, and providing they do not bite her, all will settle down in peace and comfort. ”

“ Equal care should be taken in the selection of a breeding sow as of a boar; she should be of good stature and form, sound, healthy, and free from defects; she should have twelve teats at least; for, as may be observed, each little pig selects its own teat, and keeps to it, so that a pig not having one belonging to it would in all probability be starved. A sow not pregnant, whose belly hangs low, almost touching the ground, seldom produces large litters or fine pigs ”

“ A fine fat sow which would take kindly to an unlimited number of adopted youngsters was in those days almost as valuable as a small gold mine. An old and well-known pigman, Dick by name, assured the writer that no fewer than sixty-three young boars and yelts were sold in one year off or when in company of one well-known sow. At the present time the pigs shown with a sow must be certified to be her produce and not to exceed the age of eight weeks.
It is at all times difficult to discover the motive power for certain actions on the part of a human being. ”

“ For scurf and manginess, let them blood in the tail, then take black soap brimstone, vinegar swine's-grease, and honey mixed together, of each a like quantity, and anoint the same all over with it, having first rubbed off all the scurf and filth with a wool-card.
For a sow that eateth her pigs, watch the piging, and take the least or worse pig, and annoint it all over with the juice of the herb called stone crop, and give to her eat, and she will never do the like again. ”

“ The sow wouldn't take to the water, nor could the man make her; he tried to put her across, wheelbarrow fashion, holding her up by the hind legs; then he endeavoured to drag her through the water, but she turned right around, bolted in between his legs, upset him in the muddy stream, and the rope slipping from his hand, she took her way up the moors, over hedges and ditches. Tom followed her, through bogs, brambles, and furze for many miles, till they came out in Leah lanes on the Land's End road to Penzance and Sancreed; the sow seemingly never the worse. ”

“ To aver that the power of a young sow to impress its hereditary characteristics on its young are only fully developed by deferring the arrival of the young pigs for four or five months, or until the sow is sixteen instead of twelve months old when she farrows must surely cause surprise, if not, disbelief. ”

“ Some breeders, indeed, only suffer a young sow to have one litter, and then immediately spay and fatten her, as the bacon is then supposed to be equally as good as that of an animal spayed in the very onset. ”

“ Still, it is quite safe to assert that with this one exception we may fairly anticipate that the good qualities which we seek in a sow are far more likely to be found in the sow pigs of a sow herself the possessor, than from one which does not possess them. ”

“ He then paired this sow with a boar of a small black breed, which he had likewise imported from England, and which boar, when matched with sows of his own breed, produced from seven to nine young: now, the sow of the large breed, which was so unproductive when paired with her own uncle, yielded to the small black boar, in the first litter twenty-one, and in the second litter eighteen young pigs; so that in one year she produced thirty-nine fine young animals! ”

“ I should think a very proper time to sow, or plant them, would be when you set, or plant hedges, or when plashed, or the banks fresh made up, or in pastures where Ant-hills are dug up and carried away, to sow them in the places they are dug from; It must certainly be an improvement of the first kind, to clear a Farm of all sorts of noxious and poisonous Plants and Weeds, and stocking them with such as are healthful [Pg 100] salutary and medicinal.—Trefoil & white Clover are esteemed exceeding good Grasses for producing Milk. ”

“ He who cuts the last stalk “gets the Sow,” and is laughed at.111 In other Swabian villages also the man who cuts the last corn “has the Sow,” or “has the Rye-sow.”112 In the Traunstein district, Upper Bavaria, the man who cuts the last handful of rye or wheat “has the Sow,” and is called Sow-driver.113 At Friedingen, in Swabia, the thresher who gives the last stroke is called Sow—Barley-sow, Corn-sow, etc., according to the crop. At Onstmettingen the man who gives the last stroke at threshing “has the Sow;” ”

“ Fanny’s time, in this interval, has been largely occupied in contending publicly with wild swine. We have a black sow; we call her Jack Sheppard; impossible to confine her—impossible also for her to be confined! To my sure knowledge she has been in an interesting condition for longer than any other sow in story; else she had long died the death; as soon as she is brought to bed, she shall count her days. I suppose that sow has cost us in days’ labour from thirty to fifty dollars; as many as eight boys (at a dollar a day) have been twelve hours in chase of her. ”

“ In other words, the seed [Pg 19] is sown in strips or bands, as it were, each strip being finished in one round. Some sowers, more expert at their work, sow with both hands and complete the strip each time they walk over the field. When the ground is plowed in lands of moderate width the furrows will serve to enable the sower to sow in straight lines. Where the sowing is done on land sown to grain by the drill, the drill marks may be made to effect the same result. When sown on light snows, the foot-marks will serve as guides. ”

“ If the threshers catch him they handle him roughly, beating him, blackening or dirtying his face, throwing him into filth, binding the Sow on his back, and so on; if the bearer of the Sow is a woman they cut off her hair. At the harvest supper or dinner the man who “carried the Pig” gets one or more dumplings made in the form of pigs; sometimes he gets a large dumpling and a number of small ones, all in pig form, the large one being called the sow and the small ones the sucking-pigs. ”

“ On the right-hand side are the teats and belly of a sow, just farrowed, fried with sweet wine, oil, flour, lovage, and pepper. On the left is a fricassee of snails, fed, or rather purged, with milk. At that end next Mr. ”