The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: The Chicken Lady on June 23, 2010, 09:33:50 pm
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This is my third year keeping weaners. So far I have had no problems but now one of my girls has got a swollen, floppy ear. I don't know if she has been stung or if the other one has bitten her or if it is something else. Can anyone give me some advice.
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I have 3 weaners at the moment and they are really bad for biting each others ears at feeding time even though they have a very big trough.
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Yes. This year I have given mine two bowls so that they are not pushing each other at feed time.
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recently we have just had our pigs back from slaughter, one of them had a bad swollen ear.
after asking questions on ere and looking online i found out it is called caliuflower ear (after the rugby players ears)
it happens after a play fight or fighting for food when they bite.
some say drain the fluid with a syrainge others say leave it be cos if you stick a syringe in the opening might allow bad bacteria in causing
worse infection.
i took the latter advice and left it alone.
the pig was fine and by the time the day came for them to go the swellen had gone down.
hope i hadnt bored you and hope this might help ;)
langdon :pig:
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Very unlikely but just in case - check inside ears to make sure there are none of those flea things inside. Its warm and moist in the ear, perfect conditions for them to inhabit.
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A swollen ear is usually caused by a scratch or bite, best left alone unless you can see a wound then treat with purple spray, usually it settles after a day or 2, we had one with an enormous swollen ear, i just sparyed purple spray and it soon went down, now you wouldn't even notice.
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One of my older pigs has an awful swollen lump on her ear, after managing to get a closer look (not easy when she's 300kg+ and in a right old grump! :D) its an insect/flea bite that has gone manky, have sprayed it to her disgust and fury with the aforementioned purple spray and also managed to slap on some insect repellant after sun to both her ears to ward off the biting critters. HTH
Mandy