rosemary it is a five day limit in Scotland
Five days, 7 days - doesn't it cause pain and distress?
I'm baaaaaaack
Really, honestly Rosemary - No, it doesn't.
I had always thought "barbaric, heartless proceedure - I'm never doing that" but having seen it expertly carried out by Lillian and having done ours, I can say, hand on heart, that it really doesn't seem to bother them - although this obviously depends on the care and skill shown by the person doing it, I've seen some horrendous stuff on youtube
They actually make more noise getting picked up than they do during the 'proceedure'. For me, it means they can all run in family groups without the worry of unwanted pregnancies or any chance of taint (I know, I know - not everyone can smell it, you don't get it in rare breeds........but I can smell it, therefore this is the way I do it
)
On the subject of Kune Kune castration - pure bred Kunes can be more pronel to ingunal hernias than standard pigs. The standard castration has more chance of resulting in a hernia due to the width of the ingunal canal. We took our first litter to be castrated at 6 weeks old - the vet (despite orders otherwise
they always know best
)) performed standard castrations - at 6 weeks and with no anesthetic, my poor babies ! - and guess what - we had an emergency hernia repair op to deal with. Needless to say, we no longer use that vet, preferring to use one who does listen to their punters
and the piglets have a closed castration under anesthetic around 6 weeks old. If I was running Kunes on for meat though (all boars with no gilts beside them) I wouldn't be looking for them to be castrated - it can stunt their growth too much sometimes. But for 'pet' Kunes a castrated boar is definately the way to go - no chance of any 'boarish' behaviour when it comes to food, toys, being boss etc.
HTH (and sorry for the mammoth reply, can you tell I've been missing you all !)
Karen x
