The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: benkt on February 08, 2012, 03:52:40 pm
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One of our piglets born on Monday afternoon is not suckling from Mum, and is rapidly getting weaker. How can we help it? We have tried removing the other piglets and letting it have Mum to itself but it shows no interest in feeding. Can we give it milk from another animal?
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if you have lamb re placer milk that will do but if it does not want to suck there is he haw you can do unless you tube it warm milk it has to be kept warm as well without seeing it is probably on its way out the others can flatpack it as well :farmer:
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I've been feeding our runt on animal formula (powder to make up - sorry can't remember the name) from 6 days old and managed to get it lapping the milk as it wasn't taking much from a bottle. It was having me up hourly overnight so be prepared for it!
Fingers crossed.
Steph
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Farramate (spelling?) is the name of the milk powder I have on hand in case I need it.
Fantastic stuff :)
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Farramate (spelling?) is the name of the milk powder I have on hand in case I need it.
Fantastic stuff :)
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Failing that we have used SMA Gold which is for human babies but keep it very dilute. At one day old make sure all his mouth is clear of any farrowing gunk still lurking, stick your little finger in its mouth and see if it sucks if it doesn't i think you might struggle so be prepared to lose this one. :'(
besy of luck Mandy :pig:
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Thanks as ever folks. We got a couple of feeds into him this afternoon/evening using a little syringe we had and he's looking a lot perkier. He sucks eagerly at the syringe so we'll see if he can get the habit of sucking from mum now. Not going to get my hopes up just yet though. :pig:
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A final update on the runt: he went rapidly downhill late last night. When I went out to feed him at 3am it took a while to determine whether or not he was still with us, which he was - just. He took a small feed then but died shortly afterwards.
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What a disappointment, but it's always worth giving it a go :(
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So sad sorry to hear your news but at least you know you did everything you could.
Mandy x :pig:
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Sorry to hear that - you gave him every chance, though :(
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Gutted for you, my little runt died last Thursday morning so know how you're feeling. However, like you, we have to just remember that we did all we could. :(
Steph