Archived News

17th April 2010

Our sows farrow in barns with plenty of space to move around and a large bed of straw; quite a palace for a pig.  This is all very lovely for the sow but can occasionally causes injury or death if the sow rolls or steps on a piglet.  Until now both our sows have been good mums and have warned their piglets when they are about to get up or lie down.  In a commercial pig unit farrowing crates might be used; these allow the piglets to feed in safety, but the down side is that the sow doesn’t have the same freedom of movement.

We helped the piglets feed during Thursday night and popped them back under the heat lamp afterwards. Friday morning Prudence was still very agitated and needed to be calmed down and in a laying position, before the piglets could be lifted back into the pen and onto the teats, they need a few good feeds of colostrums in the first 24 hours or they are sure to die.

After allowing the piglets a short feed Prudence would suddenly get up, very clumsily, causing the piglets to squeal with fright, and in turn she would charge in circles stamping on her little ones as we tried to scoop them out of danger.  One piglet was tossed to the side by its mum and another was stamped on and injured. This distressing situation was not what I expected at Prudence’s third farrowing and a solution was needed fast. 

Here's the little pig stamped on by his mum, he's been named Albert!

I called a local pig farmer for advice and he suggested an injection which is ideally given to the sow immediately after farrowing if she suffers from birth shock and has become vicious.  The injection helps the sow relax and sleep allowing the newborns to feed.  When the sow wakes up she often accepts her litter.

The injection was worth a try, even though it was hours after farrowing so I called the veterinary practice, they telephoned Phil, the vet who was out on site somewhere.  Back came a call ‘how heavy is Prudence?’  Once a dose was calculated for ‘too heavy’ or about 200kg, the injection was prepared for me to collect.   The drive to the surgery gave time to think about plan B, finding an immediate source of sow milk substitute to have on hand, just in case Prudence continues with her piglet attacks.

The injection was hard to administer through such tough skin and then it was a case of waiting to see any effect.  Time passed and nothing appeared to be happening so I dashed off to Atlees to pick up some substitute milk.  Eventually Prudence settled down and the piglets had a number of feeds during the afternoon and evening so they should have consumed enough colostrum and I topped up any hungy ones with substitute milk.

The good news is that Prudence seems less traumatised by her piglets as each feed time passes but I’m not sure I trust her just yet.