Pneumonia In Pigs

Categories: Diseases of Animals

What is the disease which may be said to confine itself, with few

exceptions, to young pigs weighing 100 pounds or less? Its symptoms are

at first sneezing and a mild cough. These quickly change to hard

coughing and labored breathing, which as the disease progresses shows

evidence of much pain. The appetite is lost and the eyes become gummed

and inflamed. In some cases the pig lingers on for weeks, while in

others deat occurs almost immediately. Vomiting sometimes occurs.



It is pneumonia and in its treatment "an ounce of prevention is worth a

pound of cure." Once pneumonia gets a foothold in a hog, the chances are

so strongly in favor of death that recovery may be considered out of the

question. Since remedies are not certain in the cure of pneumonia, it

will be found that the prevention of the disease is the only real way to

combat it. The main causes of the disease are exposure to draughts,

sudden changes in temperature, damp beds, manure heaps as sleeping

quarters, and exposure to the disease itself. Pigs in thin condition or

weak constitutionally are more liable to contract the trouble than pigs

in good flesh and healthy specimens. Good, dry, warm, comfortable

sleeping houses, well ventilated and so arranged as to prevent crowding

and piling up, will, I think, do more to prevent pneumonia than any

other one thing. Some such preparation as advocated by the Government

for the prevention of hog cholera will help keep the stock in a good

healthy condition, the better to combat exposure. It is the little

attentions that keep the herd healthy and in a vigorous condition, and

by using simple preventatives, remedies will he found unnecessary. - H.