HOISTING HOGS IN A LARGE PACKING HOUSE, WITH A HOG-HOISTING MACHINE. (Copyrighted; Reprint Forbidden.)

Great care should always be exercised when hogs are hoisted before sticking. When hogs are hoisted alive to be stuck, very often when a very heavy hog is jerked from the floor, the hip is dislocated or sprained, and blood will be thrown out around the injured joint, so the Ham will be spoiled. Great care should also be exercised in driving the live hogs, as hogs are the heaviest and weakest and easiest injured of all animals.

Special pens should be provided for them, so they are not crowded, and so they have plenty of room when they are driven to the killing pen. They should be handled very carefully, and piling up and crowding should be avoided as much as possible. Many hams are injured by overcrowding the hogs in the killing pens, for when hogs smell blood they become excited and nervous, and unless they have plenty of room, they will pile upon each other and bruise themselves so that there will be many skin-bruised hams, and the flesh will be full of bruises. Men driving hogs should never use a whip. The best thing to use in driving hogs is a stick about two feet long, to the end of which is fastened a piece of canvas three inches wide and two feet long. By striking the hogs with this canvas, it makes a noise which will do more towards driving them, without injury, than the whip which will injure and discolor the skin.