The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: Mrs Snoodles on October 14, 2012, 08:38:47 am
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Do you clean it up? My first Mum, had absolutely masses and didn't show any interest in it, so after a good few hours I cleaned it up.
I assumed that the same sort of thing was happening with the second litter, again, it had been left a couple of hours. I cleaned it up, but when I went near Mums head, she obviously smelt the afterbirth on my latex gloves and got up to find it. I think she would have eaten it, so I obviously made a bit of a mistake.
What do you tend to do?
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I usually move it out, along with damp and bloody straw, when she has come outside to eat or drink or poo, but keeping well away from any piglets while I do so as any squealing provokes immediate alarm. Tamsaddle
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Yep, agree with Tams - move it & clean-up as best you can, without upsetting mum.
:love: :pig: :love:
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If she's left it (cos sometimes they eat it before we get to them) we bag it up with the straw and Bruce drops it into the fallen stock place for them to dispose of (it's handy cos he passes it on his way to work) :thumbsup:
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If i'm around when it happens i whip it away straight off in a big wadge of straw, it goes in an old feed sack and is incinerated, never had a sow who wanted to eat it though i know some do its supposed to be full of iron(?).
mandy :pig:
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Charlotte always eats hers.... she cleans up herself. I half expect her to borrow the dyson after and give the stable a good spruce :roflanim:
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of our 35 sows, 90% just leave the afterbirth and we clear away soonest, esp. in summer. The remaining eat it almost immediately.
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We had 2 Hampshire sows which ate their afterbirth and we now have 2 saddleback, 2 OSB & 2 Mangalitza sows and the first thing they all do is make sure the piglets have all got their first feed and then they eat the afterbirth and tidy up the area and get back to looking after their young.
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thanks all. It sounds then as if the general rule should be, if it is left for a while, dispose. I'll always want to check it anyway, just in case their is a piglet in it and I guess if it has been lying around after that then I'll tidy up. cheers :thumbsup: :)