The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: david c on April 02, 2017, 02:37:36 pm
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Out of interest how many goes do you give a sow before culling if she initially is a poor mother - ie squashing too many? Do you find they never improve, or get better?
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Sows tend to be less careful as they get older and heavier. You can have sows that will rear good numbers consistently then have a poor litter.
Are you happy with your farrowing arrangements?
How many are we talking and when were they squashed? During the farrowing or after?
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I had one sow that only raised 3 in her first litter out of 6. Second litter she had 9 and is down to 5 live at 8 weeks. She killed 1 on the trot for 3 days at one stage! The other 2 sows have been very good and not squashed any.
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Are you helping her with farrowing bars around the walls and creep areas ?.
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What breed is she?
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A first litter of only six would be sausage time for me.
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One strike and you're out, as far as I'm concerned, unless there are mitigating circumstances such as having recently been acquired, poor housing or other stress factors, in which case I might address those and give her another try.
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I often hear from keepers that they have a 'bad' mother but on further investigation i find it actually a 'bad' keeper ::)
Stress near birth ie moving giving birth in a strange place, being traveled close to birth, too much straw in ark/farrowing house, other animals especially predatory animals eg dogs allowed too near, not enough feed, pigs living in slurry and i could go on.
My advice would be to look at the facts surrounding the birth if you are sure theres nothing that has upset her send her in for sausages but if you think theres something you could have should have done better for her then i would give her another chance.
I think women are better at looking at this situation as they see it from a mums point of view than men as men dont give birth and tend to not be as sympathetic to or understand a ladies needs.
Mandy :pig:
ps not wanting to start a man v woman war/debate! ;D