This operation is performed to counteract the propensity which swine
have of digging and furrowing up the earth. The ring is passed through
what appears to be a prolongation of the septum, between the
supplemental, or snout-bone, and the nasal. The animal is thus unable to
obtain sufficient purchase to use his snout with any effect, without
causing the ring to press so painfully upon the part that he is forced
to desist. The ring, however, is apt to break, or it wears out in
process of time, and has to be replaced.
The snout should be perforated at weaning-time, after the animal has
recovered from castration or spaying; and it will be necessary to renew
the operation as it becomes of large growth. It is too generally
neglected at first; but no pigs, young or old, should be suffered to run
at large without this precaution. The sow's ring should be ascertained
to be of sufficient strength previously to her taking the boar, on
account of the risk of abortion, if the operation is renewed while she
is with pig. Care must be taken by the operator not to go too close to
the bone, and that the ring turn easily.
A far better mode of proceeding is, when the pig is young, to cut
through the cartilaginous and ligamentous prolongations, by which the
supplementary bone is united to the proper nasals. The divided edges of
the cartilage will never re-unite, and the snout always remains
powerless.