Swineherd
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A Swineherd is a person who looks after pigs, rather like a shepherd looks after sheep. Today the term is generally used in a historical context.
Pig farming today is still carried out in a manner that can be compared to that practiced in Roman times. (Modern farms are much larger.) Marcus Terentius Varro recommended waiting till sows are 1 year and 8 months old before mating them and recommended continuing to breed them till they were 7 years old. Today sows can be mated at 6 or 7 months but it is not recommended to breed them more than 3 times. Mortality and parasite infections were more frequent in antiquity. Farmers therefore waited till they knew which sows were healthy before breeding from healthy sows. Modern pigs can breed earlier, possibly due to selective breeding but they weaken after the third litter.
[edit] Swineherds in literature
- Hans Christian Andersen wrote a Fairy tale called, "The Swineherd".
- In Greek mythology, Eumaeus (or Eumaios) was Odysseus' swineherd before he left for the Trojan War.
- In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, the younger son wastes his inheritance and eventually has to become a swineherd.
- In Lloyd Alexander's books based on Welsh mythology, The Chronicles of Prydain, the hero is a pig keeper, or swineherd.
