The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: ScotsGirl on August 08, 2013, 01:42:35 pm
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One of my OSB weaners has a painful (I think) back leg. It was a bit enlarged round the hock when I got him but he seemed fine otherwise. He is growing, eating well and playing with others but sits down a lot and when trying to run seems stiff and not quite sound. You can't really see it when walking.
I'm only assuming painful because he sits but I manipulated both joints and he didn't bother, there is no heat but one did click when I flexed it. My worry is they go to slaughter around early Sept and don't cant hi to be rejected. Is it possible that his breeder has grabbed him by the leg and damaged the joint? He did this when we went to collect them, dragging them out by the back leg.
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If he's walking and bearing weight on it, it shouldn't be cause for rejection at slaughter time. It would only be if he wasn't able to walk or move without being in obvious, severe pain. A bit of a limp wouldn't make a difference IMHO.
You could give an anti-inflamitory - but if there's no heat it might not make a difference and you'd also then have a potential delay because of withdrawal times for entering the food chain.
It's entirely possible that the back leg has been damaged :-\ But, the best method to catch piglets is to run your hands down their body (as they run between your legs) and clasp and lift both back legs together - we do this and then transfer them to a 'hold' (lying across our chests with a firm hold on at least one leg) to take them out to the car/crate/trailer - this is assuming they're still small enough to easily carry without damage to us or them, if they're too big they get walked (or gently herded) into a trailer.
HTH
Karen
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Presumably this hasn't come on suddenly, otherwise it could be the dreaded erisypelas - see several threads recently on this horrible disease. Even so, if you can, it might be worth taking his temperature to make quite sure. If it happened to be very high this could be a sign it could be ery - hope not.
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We got them in May and now they are 6 months old so not sudden just I think since weight going on. The bloke was dragging them by one back leg but it was already enlarged as we nearly didn't take him. Will take temperature but he seems happy in every other way we just won't go back to that breeder again!