Seasonal changes in spaces and bodies

My article is based on qualitative and historical analysis of source materials that include agricultural magazines, newspaper articles, and guidebooks on pig husbandry. These texts were written by agricultural professionals, such as agronomists and farmers, who shared an interest in developing pig production and its practices. I will utilize the concept of space understood as ‘geographic entities with distinct shapes, scales, and other properties that set the stage for certain kinds of [non-human and human] activities’Footnote ¹³ and in which ‘a certain coming together of human and animal relations occur’.Footnote ¹⁴ In this article, the spaces examined are historical piggeries and related outdoor areas, such as pastures and outdoor pens. Additionally, I will employ the notion made by cultural scholar Michel De Certeau, according to whom space is ‘composed of intersections of mobile elements’,Footnote ¹⁵ with which I want to draw attention to the changing properties of indoor and outdoor spaces. In this study, the focus is on properties that were altered by seasonal changes, such as temperature variations or the availability of natural feeds, which, in turn, altered the certain coming-togethers of human-animal relations in the spaces examined. Finland is also a great example of a region that experiences ‘extreme seasonality’, which means, for example, that seasonal changes are highly observable in the landscape and that seasons are overall very distinguishable from each other.Footnote ¹⁶

Besides analysing the role of nature as negotiated in the practices of raising piglets, I will also discuss throughout this article some of the early life experiences of piglets as shaped by the changing properties of space. In recent years, there has been an emergence of studies in which animals’ experiences have been in the foreground of historical analysis, accompanied by a variety of methodological developments and interdisciplinary undertones.Footnote ¹⁷ Such works, along with studies that have explored pig histories or human-nature relationships in capitalism-driven agriculture, have been integral in the shaping of this article.Footnote ¹⁸ I approach piglets’ early life experiences by focusing my attention on analysing their bodies and how their embodied existence reflected their lived realities. This follows the idea of animal historian Sandra Swart, who has suggested that the bodies of animals tell different stories about the past and reflect the life histories of animal individuals. These stories are further strengthened if bodies are observed together with behaviour – both behaviour and body – then supplying evidence of what animals have experienced.Footnote ¹⁹ Swart has likewise emphasized in her work that the bodies of animals communicate not only biology but culture as well.Footnote ²⁰ Thus, I see piglets as corporeal manifestations of cultures that produced specific modes of animal production and included specific relations to the natural world, just as their bodies are evidence of how that particular culture impacted piglets’ lifeworlds and experiences.

Finally, it is important to clarify the concept of nature as understood in this article. Intellectual historian Julia Adeney Thomas has remarked that nature ‘seems to mean so much and therefore specify so little’, which is a striking notion about the complexities present in the use of the concept.Footnote ²¹ It has many meanings, and yet it might even go undefined, the latter of which suggests that the concept of nature is something we can comprehend regardless of exact definitions. Cultural theorist Raymond Williams wrote in his essay, Ideas of Nature, that it is often most useful to focus on the history and complexity of meanings of nature, which indicate changes in the ideas of nature.Footnote ²² Thomas draws similar conclusions: she suggests that to define nature is to inspect particular historical moments and to ask what nature is taken to be and what it is not, which rejects the idea of nature as ‘one thing’ and, instead, establishes nature as ‘a series of radically reconfigured ideas’.Footnote ²³ I adopt this viewpoint in this article and approach the concept of nature as something that was defined, in part, in the contemporary discussions about the role of nature – discussions that made it observable what nature was taken to be. Thus, although this article focuses on the role of nature as well as piglets’ early life experiences, it could also offer a glimpse into the idea of nature as understood at a particular time in a particular society.

The seasonal rhythms of raising piglets

As such terms as spring piglets or autumn piglets indicate, seasonal changes had a significant role in Finnish pig husbandry practices in the early decades of the 1900s – to such an extent that piglets were categorized according to the seasons they were born in. Spring piglets were typically born in the first half of the year, and autumn piglets in the second half, although sometimes a third category, winter piglets, was employed to describe piglets born and raised during the coldest season. The seasonality of different agricultural practices was not a new phenomenon per se but rather an integral part of how agriculture functioned and how it was organized according to seasonal rhythms of the climate.Footnote ²⁴ Pigs had traditionally fended for themselves in Finnish pig husbandry and grown for a few years before humans fattened them up and slaughtered them in late autumn, which was a typical season for slaughter in traditional agriculture. However, as more efficient methods of raising and feeding pigs were developed in the late nineteenth century – an endeavour that was further aided by the perceived economic potential of pig keeping – the seasonality of raising pigs was shaped anew. Laborious forestry work had increased domestic wintertime demand for fatty pork commodities, and as this demand was mainly satisfied with cheap, imported American lard in the early 1900s, commercializing and modernizing Finnish swine husbandry looked to increase its production according to the demands of the local and, additionally, the global markets. The so-called spring piglets were now in great demand as they could be raised and fattened up during advantageous summer months and then slaughtered before winter and for winter, when domestic demand was high.Footnote ²⁵ The breeding and raising of pigs followed a highly seasonal pattern when organized in this manner. Sows were bred in late autumn, and they farrowed in spring. Piglets were sold and raised during the summer and then fattened up and slaughtered in autumn. Market demands and economic aspirations were not, however, invariable constants but shifting, dynamic ensembles that shaped, for their part, seasonal patterns of breeding and raising pigs. As the decades of the early 1900s went on, an ideal commercial pig farm was a year-round operation, although in practice, the seasonality of pig keeping was not easily changed, nor were practices of year-round pig husbandry easily adopted.

The so-called autumn piglets represented a shift from highly seasonal pig production to more even, year-round production that satisfied the demands of different markets, namely those of domestic urban consumers and export, both of which saw growth in the 1920s and 1930s and favoured leaner, bacon-type pigs.Footnote ²⁶ The demand for bacon-type pigs necessitated the year-round production of piglets, and this development could potentially cheapen the costs of producing piglets altogether, as agronomist Aarne Salokangas wrote in 1932.Footnote ²⁷ This view was based on the idea that sows’ upkeep was tied to their capacity to produce piglets, and it was more economical to have sows farrow twice a year instead of feeding them year-round and having them farrow only once a year, in which case the production costs of piglets, and therefore also their selling price, were higher.Footnote ²⁸ The demand for spring piglets was still a considerably prevalent feature of Finnish swine husbandry in the early 1930s, but agricultural experts also persistently encouraged the production of autumn piglets, even though their selling prices were often lower due to lesser demand. Then again, some of the autumn piglets were raised for the Christmas season, which was another growing market for pork products in the early 1900s.Footnote ²⁹

Spring piglets and autumn piglets had different economic significance, and they represented the seasonality of Finnish pig husbandry as well as attempts to shape the production of piglets into a year-round operation that satisfied different demands of the markets. They were not simply economic categories but also reflective of how piglets were raised and how the role of nature and its seasonal changes was negotiated in these practices.

Thriving spring piglets

In an agricultural magazine in 1933, Yrjö Collan, the head of the Finnish Cattle Cooperative and a former consultant for the Finnish Pig Breeding Association, wrote a piece on pig keeping that reveals particularly well how the changing seasons and their distinct properties set the stage for raising piglets. He referred to summer as a season especially advantageous for both young piglets and their caretakers: ‘There is plenty of sunlight, fresh air, and natural feed available for them [piglets], all of which make them thrive and grow faster. At the same time, they need only simple shelters, and the cost of their care is minimal’.Footnote ³⁰ These advantages were certainly related to the raising of spring piglets, who were typically born in the first half of the year. The idea that summer was an ideal time to raise pigs was at the core of Finnish swine husbandry, as evidenced by another swine expert, Rurik Pihkala, who had written a few years earlier, in 1926, that pigs should thrive in piggeries just like they thrived outdoors ‘in the wild’ during summertime when they were kept on pastures.Footnote ³¹ In his writing, he criticized modern piggeries for their failures to provide pigs with satisfactory living conditions, and the examples of thriving pigs with better living conditions were those raised outdoors in the summer.

A similar stance was taken in guidebooks as well. Agronomist Salokangas, who wrote multiple pig husbandry guidebooks in his lifetime, advised that in summer it was downright unnatural to keep pigs indoors; instead, pigs should be kept outdoors day and night.Footnote ³² These examples highlight the significance and role of outdoor methods in raising pigs, but they also demonstrate the emerging need to defend methods of outdoor production. As more profit-oriented swine husbandry looked for efficient methods of raising pigs, one of the adopted practices was increased indoor production of pigs. The orientation towards raising leaner, bacon-type pigs supported this development, as these pigs required high-protein feeds for rapid muscle growth, and natural foraging on pastures did not constitute an economically significant part of their diet.Footnote ³³ The indoor production, or stall-feeding, had originated in Denmark, a forerunner in intensive pig farming and a major exporter of agricultural products, such as bacon.Footnote ³⁴ In Finland, the Danish pig production system was regarded as an exemplary case of a well-developed and efficient agricultural sector, and, as a result, Finnish production system adopted and experimented with similar practices to boost the profitability of their own pig farming.Footnote ³⁵ However, the criticism towards year-round indoor production, also referred to as ‘the Danish-type indoor system’, indicates that new methods were not necessarily adopted as such, but instead, they were negotiated and applied to local conditions.Footnote ³⁶ Finnish agricultural experts were usually well aware of the latest developments in swine husbandry in several other countries, such as Sweden, Germany, and the United States, and as pig production was modernized across countries, similar practices and problems often emerged.Footnote ³⁷

The positive properties of space that set the stage for the successful raising of spring piglets were those not easily replicated in piggeries, such as sunlight, fresh air, and the availability of cheap feed with enough necessary vitamins and nutrients. Appropriate weather conditions and temperatures further questioned the function of piggeries, as inexpensive and temporary shelters provided sufficient protection. Agronomist Salokangas further reinforced this view in his guidebooks by writing, for example, about the summertime possibilities to raise piglets without expensive piggeries.Footnote ³⁸ The role of nature was evident and integrated into every aspect of summertime pig husbandry; it created spaces that were considered ideal for pigs and pig husbandry, but it also constituted an integral part of husbandry practices in which the active role of humans was lessened and the active role of nature emphasized. As such, there were fewer matters humans had to substitute for, as pigs could be given a more active role in fending for themselves in circumstances unique to the season that set the stage for positive outcomes. In this way, spring piglets were thought to be raised with nature and in nature, which shaped the overall human investments of time, money, materials, and work.

In summer, ideal pig husbandry spaces were a combination of different mobile elements, all of which influenced pigs and their vitality. Sunlight was particularly difficult to substitute for, as Finland was geographically a country situated in northern Europe with only a few hours of daylight available in winter. Spring piglets faced ‘a warm summer with sunny days’, as the pseudonym M. J–la, perhaps a bit glorifyingly, expressed in an agricultural magazine in 1926.Footnote ³⁹ Sunlight was, indeed, one of the main factors that were considered to give spring piglets their healthy demeanour, together with fresh air and the availability to root, a behaviour that was considered natural and necessary for pigs to thrive.Footnote ⁴⁰ The spring piglets’ bodies reflected these behavioural possibilities and spatial properties: as they could be let outdoors to fresh air and to root in the soil as early as two weeks old, they developed noticeably better than autumn piglets, whose time spent outdoors, as I will later on show, was considerably reduced.Footnote ⁴¹ This is not all that surprising if we consider the effects of both sunlight and rooting. Sunlight exposure boosted vitamin D synthesis in pigs’ bodies, and by rooting, pigs obtained iron, both of which made them less likely to develop deficiencies. This was further supported by the availability of fresh grass and plants, such as clover, timothy, meadow fescue, and bluegrass, as these plants were also rich in necessary nutrients, including vitamins.Footnote ⁴² Together, these seasonal elements of space shaped the early lives of spring piglets, who embodied the practices and spaces of pig husbandry as arranged at the human-nature interface of particular geographies.

Spring piglets and their bodies were most prominently described according to their better development and faster growth rate, which is indicative of the traits humans found economically important. However, spring piglets’ bodies also reflected their lived realities, such as how they had been cared for or what kind of behaviours they had been able to perform. When these interconnections are analysed, they reveal, albeit partially, what kind of factors constituted spring piglets’ early life experiences and what their lives were probably like in many cases. Surely, every spring piglet was not raised the same way, and individual life experiences were as varied as any, but analysing the common and shared factors in spring piglets’ lives presents opportunities to see the common, and often economically biased, structures that shaped, in practice, piglets’ experiences and possibilities to engage in different behaviours.

For spring piglets, the centrality of outdoor raising and the behavioural possibilities it generated cannot be underrated. For one, outdoor enclosures were spaces of movement and allowed, for example, piglets to explore and develop the full range of their locomotor abilities and play behaviour.Footnote ⁴³ Exercise and outdoor spaces were frequently coupled together in pig husbandry guidebooks.Footnote ⁴⁴ Daily exercising was defined as necessary and significant for young piglets, whose bodies were, as a result, more ‘slender and beautiful’, their backs were straight and muscles strong, and their lungs, hearts, and digestive systems were well-developed.Footnote ⁴⁵ Certain types of bodies reflected the overall fitness of piglets, which was, in part, improved in outdoor spaces as they were less restrictive of movement compared to indoor spaces, such as pens and passageways in piggeries. Still, it was often recommended that piglets should be allowed to run in the passageways, at least if it was not possible to provide them with exercising opportunities outdoors. As far as spaces of movement went, the pen was the least ideal space for that, and piglets kept only in confined spaces were defined as unfit individuals more vulnerable to diseases.Footnote ⁴⁶

Piglets’ bodies did not only reflect the results of movement, nor were the outdoor spaces merely spaces of such, but, moreover, the outdoor enclosures were also spaces of rooting and foraging. As is known, pigs are highly motivated to explore their environment, and rooting in the soil with their snouts forms part of this foraging-related and investigatory behaviour.Footnote ⁴⁷ The summertime possibilities to root and forage were crucial for spring piglets for multiple reasons. Piglets kept outdoors during the summer did not develop iron deficiency (anaemia) as they could find sufficient iron in the soil ‘just as well as their wild counterparts’, as agronomist Artturi Penttilä put it in 1939.Footnote ⁴⁸ Agronomist Salokangas advised in a guidebook that rooting was such an essential part of pigs’ nature that they simply did not thrive if this pastime was denied to them.Footnote ⁴⁹ Foraging nutrient-rich plants and rooting in the soil formed a solid base for the overall development of piglets, and it was emphasized that this was how the piglets would naturally behave or how they would naturally gain necessary nutrients, which further highlighted the role of nature and, like Penttilä mentioned, the ability of piglets to behave like their wild counterparts in nature would do. Together with movement, the possibilities to root and forage were important aspects in the lives of spring piglets, which shaped their bodies accordingly. However, from the point of view of piglets, the ability to perform these behaviours was meaningful in other ways as well.

What movement, rooting, and foraging already hinted at was that outdoor spaces were, in most cases, likely environments to offer piglets various stimuli, such as cognitive challenges, novel and manipulable materials to explore, or simply space for complex play. Animal scientists Helena Telkänranta and Sandra A. Edwards have written about the role of the early physical and social environments of piglets in shaping their early life and long-term life experiences and pointed out that the normal brain development of piglets requires ‘a certain range of sensory stimuli, spatial dimensions, interaction with materials, novelty, and cognitive challenges’.Footnote ⁵⁰ These were largely attainable in environments in which the cognitively engaging spatial properties were both plentiful and versatile, such as soundscapes, smells, tastes, visual stimuli, or various materials or individuals (of different species) to interact with. These sorts of spaces also set the stage for novel situations and sensory stimuli that were less dependent on human influence or initiation, as the outdoor spaces were moulded by, for example, different natural phenomena (weather, temperature, growth of grass, action of other species, and conspecifics) that made each outdoor space, to quote De Certeau, a unique ‘intersection of mobile elements’.

Overall, spring piglets were seen as well-developed and healthy individuals with a greater potential to thrive, but spring piglets’ lived realities were not as unambiguous as these sorts of narratives suppose. Spring piglets’ bodies reveal more complex realities. For example, the earliest spring piglets were born in February or March, which meant that their early lives were defined by a different set of practices and spaces, namely those that resembled the care of autumn piglets.Footnote ⁵¹ Spring piglets’ bodies also reflected the care that sows – their mothers – had received during the indoor seasons of autumn and winter, as they farrowed in spring after months spent in piggeries. Iron deficiency, also known as anaemia, was one of the threats that early spring piglets faced in piggeries, as they could not yet fulfil their iron stores by rooting. Anaemic piglets were pale and grey; their hair did not shine, and as agronomist Penttilä described, their lively demeanour was changed to that of suffering.Footnote ⁵² Without interference, iron deficiency increased piglet mortality and, reportedly, led to the deaths of entire litters in the most serious cases.Footnote ⁵³ If farrowing sows themselves had insufficient iron stores or other deficiencies, this further increased the probability that piglets suffered from the same deficiencies early on. This decline in sows’ iron stores as the winter progressed could concretely be seen in piglets: if sows farrowed two litters back-to-back in winter, the piglets in the second litter were more likely anaemic.Footnote ⁵⁴ Spring piglets were also described as being smaller in size than autumn piglets, which further indicated the connection between sows’ wintertime care and piglets’ bodily conditions.Footnote ⁵⁵ As long as it was not possible for piglets to root for the necessary nutrients outdoors, humans had to enrich their diets in alternative ways by providing them, for example, with iron supplements or soil blocks that they could root. Also, as the spring progressed, outdoor spaces were employed again, and even those piglets that had suffered disease had the potential to thrive as they could utilize the seasonal benefits of sunlight, rooting, and foraging.Footnote ⁵⁶

Although summertime benefits were highly praised, the methods of raising spring piglets varied, and some spring piglets were, in fact, raised indoors all through the summer. This was most likely the case for leaner, bacon-type pigs, as pastures did not constitute an economically significant part of their diet.Footnote ⁵⁷ Additionally, pigs were kept indoors due to a lack of space for pastures or enclosures or simply because the areas where pigs rooted would soon look untidy, causing aesthetic damage in the eyes of humans.Footnote ⁵⁸ However, several pig husbandry experts criticized the increased indoor production of pigs and strongly recommended that, if possible, pigs should be allowed outdoors to ‘enjoy sunshine and natural life’, as agronomist Toivo Hossola put it.Footnote ⁵⁹ As agronomist Penttilä noted, all piglets who were kept exclusively indoors were threatened by iron deficiency regardless of the time of their birth.Footnote ⁶⁰ The outdoor spaces and their summertime benefits were not automatically available for piglets but were made available in the process of negotiating nature and its role in pig husbandry. For autumn piglets, seasonal changes meant quite different realities and spaces.

Autumn piglets and the unfavourable seasons for raising piglets

Autumn piglets did not necessarily have a particularly rough start to their lives. In fact, their bodies were defined as ‘more robust at birth’ than those of spring piglets, who were usually born at the end of a long indoor season. Autumn piglets’ robust bodies were another sign of the favourable summer season that had provided their mothers with opportunities to root and nourish themselves.Footnote ⁶¹ In this way, the well-developed bodies of autumn piglets and the smaller bodies of spring piglets functioned as mediums through which the seasonal circumstances of their dams’ lives were also depicted. However, autumn piglets’ robustness was often temporary, and their lives seemed more precarious than those of spring piglets, who had a favourable season ahead of them. Overall, rearing autumn piglets was considered a challenging task, not least because of the unfavourable seasonal properties of Finnish autumn and winter.

Seasonal changes transformed the spaces of swine husbandry in multiple ways. Autumn piglets encountered ‘cloudy days, wind, and sub-zero temperatures’,Footnote ⁶² all of which described the unfavourable circumstances that seasonal changes brought about. As positive spatial properties were in decline, such as favourable weather conditions and temperatures, the significance of outdoor spaces as well as the role of nature were redefined and reassessed. The idea that piglets could be raised with and in nature did not apply to autumn piglets; instead, quite the opposite perception emerged. The pseudonym, M. J–la, wrote in an agricultural magazine in 1926 that ‘nature and circumstances are, in a sense, against them [autumn piglets]’Footnote ⁶³ and indicated, albeit briefly, that autumn piglets were practically raised against nature. The role of nature was now defined through its potential negative impacts on piglets, and as piglets could not be raised outdoors due to challenging natural circumstances, different husbandry practices and spaces were necessary, both of which continued to reflect the ideas of what was (un)natural for piglets.

The foundation for raising autumn piglets was a piggery, a shelter that was traditionally built from wood and, increasingly in the 1900s, from stone, clay bricks, and concrete. In this basic unit, the role of humans was enforced; it could be stated that humans had to not only protect piglets from nature but also substitute for it and find replacements for properties that were typically provided by nature during the warmer months of the year. Thus, negotiating indoor production methods was simply another matter in which the role of nature was also comprehended and negotiated. Although piglets in shelters were physically separated from nature and its seasonal properties, such as sub-zero temperatures, the circumstances in piggeries were not completely unaltered by the seasonal changes. Cold and draughty piggeries were fairly common during the early 1900s for a multitude of reasons, one of which was the shortcomings in construction, such as a lack of insulation or heating systems.Footnote ⁶⁴ Therefore, many of the piggeries reflected the seasonal changes and properties of the surrounding nature instead of forming fully isolated units that separated their inhabitants from the outside world.

As such, piggeries set the stage for raising piglets during the colder months of the year, but their challenges were plentiful, and many of the natural benefits of outdoor spaces were harder to replicate in piggeries. For one, they were spaces of confinement, which meant that piglets had less room for play and movement. Lack of exercise was seen as a risk that threatened the development and overall health of piglets, and generally, autumn piglets were those who spent a notable amount of time in confined indoor spaces, such as pens.Footnote ⁶⁵ While outdoor exercise was more restricted or even denied to piglets during the colder months, some husbandry practices reflected attempts to compensate for the lack of outdoor access. It was advised that piglets could be let out of their pens to run and roam in the passageways of piggeries, which formed important indoor spaces for wintertime exercise.Footnote ⁶⁶ For piglets, access to passageways meant other possibilities as well; they experienced and investigated novel surroundings, but they were also often given additional feed in the passageways.Footnote ⁶⁷ Although pen spaces formed the basic unit for piglets’ wintertime care, additional spaces employed for the practical care of piglets, such as passageways, also reflected poverties of pen spaces and what they were unfit for. However, indoor exercise was always a secondary option if beneficial outdoor access was not completely out of the question. In the early autumn, daytime temperatures could still be warm enough for piglets, and agronomist Hossola advised that autumn piglets ‘strictly need all the exercise’ that can be given to them outdoors during this late season.Footnote ⁶⁸ This was, of course, further emphasized by the fact that piglets did not only move about more freely outdoors, but they also engaged in other beneficial behaviours, such as rooting. This also reflects the complexities in defining the role of nature, as seasonal changes were not instant transformers of outside spaces; instead, the changes were most often gradual and allowed for nuanced practices in the raising of piglets.

The restricted outdoor access of piglets also affected the possibilities of rooting and foraging, as the properties of indoor spaces did not automatically set the stage for these kinds of activities. In this regard, piggeries could also be understood as spaces of barrenness due to their design, although there was considerable variation between different piggeries regarding, for example, the materials they were built from or the materials pigs were provided within a pen. If piglets were kept on dirt floors that were covered with layers of straw bedding, their chances of rooting were inherently greater than they were on concrete floors, which did not allow for such activity. Nonetheless, the amount and quality of bedding material, such as straw, impacted the piglets’ living conditions and enriched the indoor spaces assigned for them by providing manipulable materials as well as more comfortable and preferred resting places. Pedigree pig breeder Rurik Pihkala advised in 1926 that pens should be thickly bedded with loose materials, such as straw or wood shavings, so that pigs, ‘whose nature demands rooting before lying down’, could satisfy their natural needs and push their snouts into the bedding.Footnote ⁶⁹ While outdoor spaces should not be understood as unlimited spaces for rooting or foraging, indoors, the size and materiality of pens usually comprised a more restrictive living environment for piglets regarding the aforementioned activities.

Thus, depending on the materials available for piglets in the pens, they could, to some extent, use their snouts and practice rooting behaviour. Surely, the acts of rooting were rewarding for pigs as such, as they formed a part of their species-specific behavioural repertoire, but nutritionally, rooting in the straw did not suffice. In winter, their feed was often poor in iron, and as agronomist Penttilä pointed out, there was usually a lack of iron-rich substances available for pigs to root in pens.Footnote ⁷⁰ From the point of view of agronomist Penttilä, the development of anaemia could simply be prevented the same way piglets prevented it when they were outdoors; they could be given soil blocks for rooting.Footnote ⁷¹ These were particularly important in pens with concrete floors; piglets kept in pens with dirt floors could usually root for nutrients in the soil, although this was not always the case.Footnote ⁷² Different practical variations were employed in the utilization of soil as a wintertime iron source for piglets. In addition to offering soil blocks for piglets, it was also possible to have a box of sand or dirt available for piglets to use. Sometimes iron supplements, such as iron sulphate, were mixed in the sand, which further supported the sufficient intake of iron in piglets.Footnote ⁷³ When performed this way, the whole natural process from relevant behaviour to relevant sources of iron was replicated, which, in turn, provided piglets not only nutritional benefits but also important stimuli in the forms of exploration and rooting. Although piglets could not be let outside during the coldest months, the natural behaviour of pigs carried relevance in the arrangements and negotiations of indoor husbandry practices and spaces. This also meant, quite literally, the act of placing natural elements, such as soil blocks, into piggeries.

While pigs’ natural behaviour functioned as an example of how piglets could be provided with iron, the practices of supplementing iron were rather diverse, and generally, the most important factor was to recognize the overall need for supplementation and to ensure the sufficient nutrient intake of piglets. This was also accomplished by simply adding iron supplements to their feed or water, in which case the process of rooting for minerals was left out. In the case of nursing piglets, proper iron intake was also aided by applying iron syrup to the teats of their mothers so that when piglets nursed, they would also receive additional iron.Footnote ⁷⁴ However, while the different preventive measures could guarantee piglets a life without anaemia, they were not equally stimulating for piglets. If iron was primarily offered in the form of soil blocks or sandboxes, the possibilities to root were greater, as these features also combated the inherent barrenness of indoor spaces. The practical measures employed in the acts of substituting for nature created different circumstances that, in part, defined the early life experiences of piglets indoors.

Overall, the unfavourable natural circumstances emphasized the role and resources of humans; autumn piglets required more time, money, materials, and work, all of which were, to some extent, substituted by nature in more favourable times of the year. The increased activity of humans reflected not only the seasonal changes that required different husbandry practices, but it also reflected the shifting role of piglets as indoor spaces guided their activities and behavioural possibilities. In piggeries, the mobile elements of space that defined the cognitively and physically engaging environment were increasingly shaped by human activities, choices, views, and resources that determined, for example, the material conditions in which piglets lived, daily exercise patterns, feed composition and feeding rhythms, access to water, and the temperature, moisture, and lighting of their living environment. Whereas daily exercise opportunities in passageways, manipulable straw, or rooting for iron in soil blocks or in boxes of sand were examples of how human activities could support creating engaging behavioural opportunities for autumn piglets, the indoor spaces did not inherently contain these elements or allow for these sorts of behaviours but instead required constant human investments.

Thus, piglets’ bodies and behaviours reflected the successes and failures of practical human efforts to substitute for nature in piggeries. Agronomist Hossola wrote in 1925 that ‘if an autumn piglet is raised rationally, it will grow to be beautiful and proportionate. But if it is confined to a cold, dark, and damp piggery and it is not given appropriate feed nor enough exercise, it will not develop well and will not pay back its feed’.Footnote ⁷⁵ The meaning of rational raising of piglets can be grasped if we look more closely at some of the practices that Hossola introduced in his writing. He advised that autumn piglets should be born in September, at the latest, so that it was still warm enough during the early period of their lives when they were most sensitive to the detrimental effects of cold temperatures. If raised this way, piglets would be older and physically stronger when the indoor season began, and they could endure lower temperatures. Another matter was to let piglets nurse their mothers until at least six weeks old, for nothing would aid their growth better than mothers’ milk, as Hossola put it. Additionally, piglets would be slowly accustomed to other feedstuffs, such as skimmed milk, barley, rye, gruel, potatoes, and root crops. Outdoor exercise and rooting possibilities were to be utilized as long as practicable, and necessary minerals were offered in the form of ash and calcium. Living conditions in a piggery were also important; good lighting, a calm and dry environment, and decent warmth improved the growth of ‘beautiful and proportionate’ piglets.Footnote ⁷⁶ Briefly, to raise autumn piglets rationally meant maximizing the possibilities to utilize nature while also recognizing the inevitable role of piggeries and indoor husbandry practices and the need to shape the quality of these human investments accordingly.

Utilization of nature did not only mean outdoor access and rooting, or, as in piggeries, substitutes for these matters, but it also entailed the emphasized role of maternal care, the presence of which secured the growth of piglets in challenging circumstances. The age at which piglets were separated from their mothers varied greatly; piglets were two to three weeks old at separation, at the earliest, and at the latest, eight to ten weeks old. The rough estimate of the suitable time for separation was between four and seven weeks old.Footnote ⁷⁷ However, autumn piglets were more likely to spend a week or two longer in the care of their mothers. The age of separation was described as the most difficult period to care for piglets, as their development was often interrupted, their bodies were dirty and ruffled, and their ‘zest for life was completely gone’, as was expressed in an advisory book written by Hossola in 1926.Footnote ⁷⁸ The stress of separation was experienced by every piglet despite their time of birth, but as autumn piglets encountered a set of other unfavourable circumstances, from cold to greater confinement, it was not a surprise that their age of separation was prolonged to compensate for other stressors in their lives.

The descriptions of piglets raised in piggeries complement the notion made by historian Sandra Swart that the bodies of animals tell different stories about the past.Footnote ⁷⁹ They also connect bodies and practices, reflecting the reality in which piglets became ‘slender and beautiful’ or ‘crook-backed and short-bodied’.Footnote ⁸⁰ Hossola linked the successful raising of autumn piglets, reflected by their ‘beautiful and proportionate’ bodies, to rational husbandry practices that tackled the challenges of the more difficult time of the year by both utilizing nature and ensuring the quality of indoor spaces. Moreover, by writing in a newspaper about how autumn piglets should be raised, he used his expertise and advice to counteract the common conception in the early 1900s that raising autumn piglets was an arduous and unprofitable business.

Yet, what the bodies of autumn piglets often depicted was that, in many cases, it was difficult and arduous to raise them with certain resources and practices. Hence, when it was recommended, for example, that breeding pigs should be chosen among spring piglets because autumn piglets were weaker after having to spend a prolonged period of time in confinement indoors, or that before long, the joints of autumn piglets would get swollen and their legs deformed if they were kept strictly confined to their pens, in both cases, the bodies of piglets functioned as a medium through which two kinds of experiences were unfolded.Footnote ⁸¹ They conveyed the experiences of piglets themselves, as their bodies had been altered by certain husbandry practices, and they mediated the experiences of farmers who had employed a particular set of spaces and practices. These sorts of instances help to identify the different kinds of elements, such as seasonal changes and practices, that constituted the circumstances in which the different assumptions about the realities of raising piglets were shaped. The bodies of piglets who ran in the passageways, or rooted in the sandbox, or nursed their mothers, or suffered from deficiencies and diseases, or soaked in the sun, and so on, all connect us to the complexities and practices of raising piglets that shaped their lifeways and experiences from the very moment they were born at the human-nature interface of particular geographies.