The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Tamsaddle on July 09, 2011, 10:00:23 am
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Yesterday afternoon we carried out the notching of the ears of our 5 (out of 10) herd-standard pedigree saddleback piglets, an operation I had been absolutely dreading doing, and thought I would report for others in the same predicament that it was surprisingly easy and virtually noiseless! The piglets are just over 5 weeks old, therefore still with mum, so we timed it for when she was scoffing away at tea time and entirely pre-occupied on her favourite activity - eating. There was a small bit of noise picking up the piglets, but almost no reaction at all when the notch was cut - to our absolute amazement! At the instant of cutting the notch there was no blood at all, this arrived about 5 -10 seconds later, but not a huge amount. Most of them had to have 2 notches and only one had to have 3. Much more difficult was targeting the notch with either/both Stop Bleeding Fast spray and the purple antiseptic spray. All 5 piglets immediately rejoined the others rushing around searching for nuts scattered on the ground, and seemed totally unbothered to have had chunks cut out of their ears. All bleeding was over within an hour, and this morning the notches are dried up and clean and look like they have been there for ever!! So for other saddleback owners who are reluctantly contemplating notching - it really isn't nearly as bad as you think, and most importantly, the piglets themselves, and their mum, seemed quite unphased by the whole thing - Tamsaddle
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Thanks for posting ;) I was dreading it - but not so much now.
Karen :wave:
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excuse my youthful ignorence :D but why do you have to notch..what is the reason for it,ive always wondered..we have x breeds so just tag when needed thank god,always thought that notching seemed so awful! :-\.....
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Unfortunately, notching for herd-registered Saddlebacks is still considered by the BPA to be the only 100% certain method of identifying individual pigs, as tags can allegedly fall out or be removed, and they insist on double tagging of both ears if you refuse to notch. If you want to show any Saddlebacks, notches are compulsory, and although we ourselves are not going to do this, we are selling some of our registered piglets and the new owners might need them. I also read it was better to do notching before they reached 6 weeks old, so that is why we did it this week, and as I said above, was very happily surprised at how it all turned out - Tamsaddle
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notching and tattooing is to positively identify pedigree pigs for there lifetime it is one of the requirements for showing pedigree pigs as well
dolly mixture pigs can be paint marked (depends on age ) tagged slap marked for slaughter (same as tattooing but done on the shoulders) or if you prefer tattooing and notching (with your own system and numbers ) the big thing is your pig has to be easily traced back to you when hanging on the hook in simple terms so that an idiot can trace the carcase to the paper work to identify where the pig came from so big brother can come and shut you down not meaning you singularly but any pig farmer :farmer: :pig:
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lol...very good robert w...
i know about tagging and slap marking etc..been doing it 3 years now its just ive never been around any pedigree show pigs til i went to lincs show the other week!now thanks to this i know why its done :) still i dont know why but it still makes me squeemish!! :D not much does so its wierd why this does,at least the piglets dont seem to care to much about it! i await the day i may have to do it... :-[ ;) :D
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I still think notching is pretty barbaric, and looks horrible.