“Pigs are considered to be clean ten days after birth, and for that reason were then called by the ancients sacred, as being then first fit for sacrifice:  and so in the Menaechmi of Plautus, when a character thinking some one in Epidamnus to be out of his wits and seeking to purify him, asks:  ‘How much are sacred pigs here.’

“If the farm affords them, pigs should be fed grape husks and stalks.

“After they have lost the name of lactantes the shoats are called nefrendes because they are not yet able to break down (frendere that is frangere) the bean stalks. Porcus is the ancient Greek name for them but is fallen into disuse, for the Greeks now call them [Greek:  choiros].

“While she is giving suck the sow should be watered twice a day to promote the flow of milk.  A sow should bear as many pigs as she has teats:  if she has less it is considered that she is unprofitable, but if more, a prodigy.  In this respect there is the ancient tradition that the sow of Aeneas bore thirty white (albos) pigs at Lavinium,[133] which portended that after thirty years the inhabitants of Lavinium would found the town of Alba:  indeed, vestiges of this sow and of her pigs may still be seen at Lavinium where there is a brazen image of them now in the public square, and the true body of the sow is shown by the priests, preserved in pickle.

“Sows are able at first to suckle eight little pigs, but as they grow larger half of them are usually taken away by experienced swineherds, because the sow cannot supply milk enough for all, and too many pigs fed together do not prosper in any event.  A sow should not be driven out of the stye for ten days after having her litter except for water, but after that time she is permitted to graze in a paddock so conveniently near at hand that she may return to the stye frequently to suckle the pigs.  When the pigs are large enough they are permitted to follow the sow to pasture, but at home they should be penned apart from the sow and fed by themselves until they overcome their yearning for the dam, which usually happens in ten days.  The swineherd should train his shoats to do every thing at the sound of the trumpet.  This training is begun by letting the shoats hear the trumpet outside their pens and then at once come out to a place where barley has been scattered broad cast (for thus less is wasted than if the feed is put in heaps and more of the shoats can get to it easily).  By such education it is possible to collect pasturing hogs at the sound of a trumpet and prevent their being lost when scattered in the woods.[134]

“Boars are altered most successfully when they are a year old, but in no case should this be done when they are less than six months old.  After the operation they are no longer called boars, but barrows.

“Concerning the health of swine, I will say one thing only by way of example:  if the sow is not able to supply milk the sucking pigs should be fed, until they are three months old, on roasted wheat (for when it is raw it loosens the bowels) or on barley boiled in water.