LITTLE PIGS
By April 1st all my sows had farrowed. There was much variation in the
number of pigs in these nineteen litters. One noble mother gave me
thirteen, two of which promptly died. Three others farrowed eleven each,
and so down to one ungrateful mother who contributed but five to the
industry at Four Oaks. The average, however, was good; 154 pigs on April
10th were all that a halfway reasonable factory man could expect.
These youngsters were left with their mothers until eight weeks old;
then they were put, in bunches of thirty, into the real hog-house, which
was by that time completed. It was 200 feet long and 50 feet wide, with
a 10-foot passageway through the length of it. On either side were 10
pens 20 feet by 20, each connected with a run 20 feet by 120. The house
stood on a platform or bed of cement 90 by 200 feet, which formed the
floor of the house and extended 20 feet outside of each wall, to secure
cleanliness and a dry feeding-place in the open. The cement floor was
expensive ($1120 as first cost), but I think it has paid for itself
several times over in health and comfort to the herd. The structure on
this floor was of the simplest; a double wall only five feet high at the
sides, shingled roof, broken at the ridge to admit windows, and strong
partitions. It cost $3100. As in the brood-sow house, there is a kitchen
at the west end. The 150 little pigs made but a small showing in this
great house, which was intended to shelter six hundred of all sizes,
from the eight-weeks-old baby pig to the nine-months-old
three-hundred-pounder ready for market.
Pigs destined for market never leave this house until ripe for killing.
At six or seven months a few are chosen to remain on the farm and keep
up its traditions; but the great number live their ephemeral lives of
eight months luxuriously, even opulently, until they have made the ham
and bacon which, poor things, they cannot save, and then pass into the
pork barrel or the smoke-house without a sigh of regret. They toil not,
neither do they spin; but they have a place in the world's economy, and
they fit it perfectly. So long as one animal must eat another, the man
animal should thank the hog animal for his generosity.
Now that my big hog-house seemed so empty, I would gladly have sent into
the highways and byways to buy young stock to fill it; but I dared not
break my quarantine. I could easily have picked up one hundred or even
two hundred new-weaned pigs, within six or eight miles of my place, at
about $1.50 each, and they would have grown into fat profit by fall; but
I would not take a risk that might bear ill fruit. I had slight
depressions of spirits when I visited my piggery during that summer; but
I chirked up a little in the fall, when the brood sows again made good.
But more of that anon.