The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: plt102 on February 21, 2011, 09:33:55 am
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Hi there.
Can anyone give me some advice? We have 4 weaners of approx 15 weeks old. They are all well except for one who is lame. We noticed that he had an occasional limp on a hind leg last week. I checked him and he had no obvious injuries or swelling, although i was unable to have a good look at his foot.
We went away for the weekend and they were looked after by my in laws but now he is worse and apparently had a bit of trouble getting up this morning. He seems to get better in the afternoon and is still eating well etc and sometimes we cannot tell he is lame. Could it just be a muscle strain or could it be an infection or something? I read that we should isolate him and see if he gets better and if he shows no sign of improvement or gets worse, we should destroy him. I don't want him to suffer, but I would like to give him the chance to recover if possible and any advice would be welcome (food, treatment etc). We will be sorting out a nice comfy hospital pen for him this evening.
Thanks in advance
p
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Hi
I wouldn't isolate him as this will stress him considerably. Sounds to me like he has either strained himself or has a touch of arthritis. Anything more sinister there would be heat & pain. I would call the vet and ask him for either a metacam jab or metacam liquid which will help him. The vet will need an approx. weight of the pig. So long as he's eating, drinking and doing what the others do he should recover.
HTH Mandy :pig:
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Ok - thank you very much. I'll ask the vet for metacam and make all four of them a little more comfy. They have excavated their whole outdoor run and there are some bit stones etc so perhaps he hurt himself on one of them.
I'll wait and hope that he gets better. I'll check for heat and sweeling again as well.
Anythings I should watch out for which would mean that he should be put out of his misery immediately?
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Just if he's visibly in pain and won't let you touch him which might suggest a break but from what you say it sounds like he's overdone the digging!! :D
Make sure he has a nice straw bed in their house, rest & time are great healers.
i'm sure he will be fine.
Best Mandy
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We had exactly this last year with one of our weaners, it was first time as pig keepers for us and so as he was no better by the end of the day I called the vet out, she could not find anything specific, but gave antibiotic injection and painkiller which we had to then do for the next 4 days. On hindsight, I think I would have given him a little more time, as soon as he had the painkiller he was up and right as rain in about an hour! So was probably a muscle strain or something like that. We have not got any this year as we have decided to build a smaller run, they had a large area that was L shaped and we think that he may have hurt himself running round the corner at feed time.
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yes they are extremely active and run around alot. All that food being burnt off as energy - boo hoo! At leats they seem happy but perhaps we'll try a slightly smaller area next time and rotate it instead.
Thanks for the reassurance. We'll give him a bit of time
p
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Just an update if you are interested.
Mr Pig got much worse very quickly so I rang the vet, just in case and got some antibiotics to treat joint infection. First day was first time giving an injection in a pig but it went Ok. Today was the third and last jab and he is so much better that it took me half an hour to corner him and give the jab. Good to see him looking so well and i am glad I don't have to do it again now he can run :-)
Now we know what to look for in the others just in case. 4 weeks to go....
Thanks for your advice
P
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Pleased to hear he's on the mend, always fun trying to jab pigs ;D
Mandy :pig:
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Glad piggy is better, we had such fun injecting ours NOT! Its ok when the vet comes out because the animal is in pain and does not move much, different story when he is feeling better!!!
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He had another bout of it so another course of jabs. Really hope he makes it through the 3 week dry off period - it would be such a waste if he can't go to the abbatoir because he is lame. Anybody had any experience of culling at home? Can you still eat the pork?
Injecting pigs is really hard, espacially as they don't have wellies to get stuck in the mud and can run alot faster than me (even when they are hobbling) :-)
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So you are having them slaughtered at 5 months old? That seems quite young to me.... or have I done my sums wrong?
Last year our 4 GOS boys went off at 7 months (tad over in fact) and killed out at between 65 and 82 kg, at 5 months old they were appreciably smaller
Just curious ;)
Tish
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Oh yes, forgot to say hope the lame weaner gets better ;D
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We are really new at this and although our boys aren't very big, we are worried about boar taint and they are also very boisterous with each other.
Lame Mr pig is much better after his 2nd course of drugs - thanks
I have booked them in at the abbatoir now. Not sure we can afford ot feed them much longer - is it not a law of diminishing returns after a while?
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your pigs are approx 5mths old(from your first post) the main thing with any animal is to give it the best life it can get yes there are tough economic times and feed does cost £300 a ton pigs are a great choice of animal but caution should be exercised as with any stock
the amount of animals purchased what your intentions for them are and a good understanding of what you are buying pigs are being offloaded around the country creating future problems it is easier to keep 2 than 22. gilts or castrated males are better than entire males
i am struggling to be kind and diplomatic on this both for yourself and others that are in a similar situation the only entire males that we sell are for breading that is our choice and experience
your short venture into the happy world of pig keeping has been a learning curve and hope it does not prevent you or others from having pigs ask questions before you buy pigs even if the questions seem stupid the amount of questions we have been asked when selling pigs has been huge
now the diminishing returns fed correctly they double there weight every few months(i weight record my pigs and when completed with the pigs this year will post on here)i have posted the weight and growth of butch on here take care and happy pigging about :wave: :wave:
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Thanks for the feedback. I had read that they shouldn't be left to 6 months as they will get boar taint, so we thought we'd let them go earlier but I'll have another think. So do you think the food we put in will be worth the extra pork at the end? We are definitely getting gilts next time so we can keep them a bit longer and not worry about all the 'naughtiness' in the paddock all day every day....... :-)
still lots to learn but very fun and rewarding
P
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o they are at it. you will get this as well with entire males why not dispatch the boys and shortly after the girls but they will be up the stick
next time either just have 2 or get them at different ages and ask at point of purchase if castrated and get them at 8 or 10 weeks old if not just walk you should not feel obliged to buy hope this helps :pig: :pig: :pig: :pig: :wave:
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we have all 4 boys at the moment but that doesn't seem to bother them......
:-\
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no it does not bother them alarming and amusing also shocking to the prim and propper :o :o
they are like mp,s well fed and sod all else to do :wave: :wave:
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We have 7 (!!!) uncastrated males that we ended up stuck with after selling all the females out of the litter - I read 32 weeks (7/8 months) for boar taint - so had marked 31st May as their absolutely have to be gone by but have heard a lot of people just send them at 6 months so am looking at sending them soon - they are looking ready.
Re keeping males and females together - we made a big mistake with our saddleback. We went to choose and buy a 6/7 month old gilt to keep a 7 month OSB gilt company when our older sows were indoors for farrowing. We didn't take her straight away because we had a ram sale coming up and didn't want the standstill to affect (got mixed up and thought it was 21 days - of course it would only have been 6 for the sheep). Anyway she was being kept in with her two brothers - all three were due to go for slaughter and he hung on for us to have her - registered her for us etc. He delivered her late September - after unloading her he told me she might be in pig to her brother. And yup come January - two (well three, one stillborn) little piglets (I'm blaming the 'boar's immaturity for the small litter) - I'm concerned now as she isn't as big as she should be and I really hope she catches up once the piglets are weaned. :-(
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Hi there - just to let you know all our boys went safely and limp free the last two weeks on the trot (2 at a time). They were massive! Perhaps they were a little bit over 12 weeks when we got them..... We were hoping for 55-65 kg but our biggest was over 90kg!
Can't wait for the next piggies to come. The pork is delicious!
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Your pigs' meat won't get boar taint as soon as their 6-month birthday arrives. Have a quick look around this forum and you'll find it all explained quite a few times.
:wave:
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What breed are they? Some others on here have different opinions, but if they're a traditional breed and are raised outdoors in a small group, I wouldn't be worried about keeping them to past six months. I've often kept entire Tamworth boars to seven months without detecting boar taint, nor have I had complaints from customers.
Commercial breeds and cross breeds will mature earlier, however. Check the withdrawal time on the medication and just see how he goes, but I wouldn't fret too much about hanging onto him a bit longer. Your first duty is to make sure he's okay.