[shetlandpaul]

thats about £30 cheaper than we can get it. how do you make money on your two year old sausage pigs. we went into the red at 9 months. how do you stop them putting on tons of fat.

[Liquidator]

I always use sow rolls for weaning. At 1 week old I introduce them to a sow roll porridge and then gradually work up to full sow rolls at 3-4 weeks and try to get them fully weaned by 6 weeks.

I always use a trough, which are cleaned regularly and the only time I feed on the ground is when I scatter vegetables.

I know that they like to rootle in the mud but it just seems fairer to give them clean food.

The hard part is keeping the troughs clean during the winter but I try to ensure they kept reasonably clean where possible, even if it's just a scrape out before feeding time.

[Blonde]

thats about £30 cheaper than we can get it. how do you make money on your two year old sausage pigs. we went into the red at 9 months. how do you stop them putting on tons of fat.

I buy seconds grain from the seed works, and dont add anything to it, I also runthem on pastue and feed them hay.   I dont do any thing much till it is nearly time for them to go.  I give them a liitle  bit of feed and they grow well,  if you over feed you then have fat pigs. As they mature they only 2kg per day....same as the sows

[robert waddell]

and there was me thinking i was doing great with the Hampshire's putting on 1kilo per day(and the college surprised that i was achieving this growth level with outdoor pigs in Scotland)   just shows you what a bit of heat can do??

[Stevie G]

You have to bring it in to infect a pig herd from F&M. It can't be done by taking piglets dung and throwing it on to the pen floor and letting Gilts put there snouts through it, unless its already on farm. You obviously have no understanding of its transmission.

Stevie G I asked if f&m had ever occurred in Oz.

 My comment about bacon sandwiches was tongue in cheek to Shetland Paul.  Thanks for the info.

Too much to read and not enough hours thats half the problem.
Work more hours now I am not doing pigs. Up at 4:45 am and in bed by 11:00.
Thankfully only 5 days a week and not 7!

As far as I know with the Foot and Mouth, not as far as I know!!!!

The laws are very strict over here(not strict enough to keep me out though), which is in a way is a blessing.

[princesspiggy]

 No meat or offal to be fed.....just grain
[/quote]

so how could u feed stillborns etc? or have laws changed since?

[Blonde]

No meat or offal to be fed.....just grain

so how could u feed stillborns etc? or have laws changed since?
[/quote]I have never fed dead piglets to my girls in all of the 17 years I have been in pigs.   Feed back is a very new idea in this piggery and was suggested by the vet and the vet only.  Yes I do a little ...but a bit sceptical about the idea.

Sows that have farrow consume their  own after birth and that is a very natural thing for them to do.

As for feeding meat to sows, boars etc... You can not  run animals and put the dead ones in the pen ie. sheep as was done long ago.....and you can not go roo shooting and put the waste in the pig yards  either. And in to the bargain swill feeding  is also banned, so nothing out of the kitchen is to go into the pig yards. Swill is a hugely fineable offence here in Oz.

 Bones in a sows stomach on slaughter means trouble with the authorities.   Better not to do it and just feed grain.  You can feed meat meal, blood meal and fish meal that has been through high temperatures.

[Leri]

I have three sows and they've all just farrowed the once so far. I was with the first two, the third one farrowed on her own in the early hours of the morning. The middle one had thirteen live piglets and showed no interest whatsoever in eating the afterbirth. We forked it out of there once she was settled with them anyway.
The first one had two stillborn piglets - she never showed any interest at all in eating them or the afterbirth.
The third one - saddleback farrowed in early hours of the morning - in the morning she had two live piglets suckling at her. I keep square buckets on their sides along the edges of the farrowing sheds so piglets have an escape and there is a buffer between mum and the wall. Later on in the day after she gave birth she'd rooted them out the way so I put them back(something I have to do frequently! but worth it if it saves a squished piggy) - underneath where I was about to put the bucket back I noticed a stillborn piglet still in the thick bag - buried under the straw. Seems her instinct was to bury it not eat it. She didn't eat the afterbirth either.
I feel if it is their instinct to do it and do it of their own accord - then fair enough, but as stated earlier liquidising it and adding it to feed just sound disgusting and very wrong.

[Blonde]

I have three sows and they've all just farrowed the once so far. I was with the first two, the third one farrowed on her own in the early hours of the morning. The middle one had thirteen live piglets and showed no interest whatsoever in eating the afterbirth. We forked it out of there once she was settled with them anyway.
The first one had two stillborn piglets - she never showed any interest at all in eating them or the afterbirth.
The third one - saddleback farrowed in early hours of the morning - in the morning she had two live piglets suckling at her. I keep square buckets on their sides along the edges of the farrowing sheds so piglets have an escape and there is a buffer between mum and the wall. Later on in the day after she gave birth she'd rooted them out the way so I put them back(something I have to do frequently! but worth it if it saves a squished piggy) - underneath where I was about to put the bucket back I noticed a stillborn piglet still in the thick bag - buried under the straw. Seems her instinct was to bury it not eat it. She didn't eat the afterbirth either.
I feel if it is their instinct to do it and do it of their own accord - then fair enough, but as stated earlier liquidising it and adding it to feed just sound disgusting and very wrong.

I had twos sows farrow today, one consumed the afterbirth and the other did not.  One had 3 still bornes and they were still there, some do it and some dont.   That is the way it is.  But I dont collect them and liquidise them and feed them back to the gilts...growsssssssss they go down to the hole  down the paddock and are buried.   But the after birth is generally consumed  but occaisionally not by all. 

[Stevie G]

I have three sows and they've all just farrowed the once so far. I was with the first two, the third one farrowed on her own in the early hours of the morning. The middle one had thirteen live piglets and showed no interest whatsoever in eating the afterbirth. We forked it out of there once she was settled with them anyway.
The first one had two stillborn piglets - she never showed any interest at all in eating them or the afterbirth.
The third one - saddleback farrowed in early hours of the morning - in the morning she had two live piglets suckling at her. I keep square buckets on their sides along the edges of the farrowing sheds so piglets have an escape and there is a buffer between mum and the wall. Later on in the day after she gave birth she'd rooted them out the way so I put them back(something I have to do frequently! but worth it if it saves a squished piggy) - underneath where I was about to put the bucket back I noticed a stillborn piglet still in the thick bag - buried under the straw. Seems her instinct was to bury it not eat it. She didn't eat the afterbirth either.
I feel if it is their instinct to do it and do it of their own accord - then fair enough, but as stated earlier liquidising it and adding it to feed just sound disgusting and very wrong.

Any feedback thats done is done through the PERMISSION OF A VET.
It is only a short term measure and should NOT be done with every disease problem as the situation will be made worse rather than better.
This practice is not an every day occurence, and is infact only ever done once in a bluemoon.
You can think what you like, but what it really shows is your ignorance of what feedback is all about, building up the immunity of your pigs without having to use drugs or any other chemicals in their diet.
Surely that has to be far better.

And so it goes on and on and on.

[robert waddell]

bluemoon i heard you were in Australia not Kentucky
ignorance of what feedback is     it is ignorance to the regulations of keeping pigs in Europe

[Blonde]

bluemoon i heard you were in Australia not Kentucky
ignorance of what feedback is     it is ignorance to the regulations of keeping pigs in Europe

Pigs consume their after birth even in the bush/wild so that predators dont hang around and take the babies.    They do not leave it to lay on the ground and move their piglets, it is the other way around.   

Feed back is just generally a once off idea suggestd by the vets to  build immunity in the gilts kept back for breeding. 

[robert waddell]

I AM WELL AWARE THAT SOME PIGS EAT THERE AFTERBIRTH AS DO CATTLE
we are in Europe not the bush(could do with a bush) and do things not to offend the masses or break the laws it is as simple as that 

[shetlandpaul]

why is this still going on. steve g. explain what he did. he has clearly said he does not do it with dead stock. he exposes thyem to poo. which was under his vets instructions.
he is in a diffrent country so has diffrent rules and diffrent bugs to watch out for. if his pigs are healthy and the vets happy then what more can he do.

yes the concept seems strange but a lot of stuff in livestock still seems strange to me.

[supplies for smallholders]

Hi,

My only concern now with this thread is that initially it was not stated that this was Non-UK, so somebody reading the posts may have thought that this was accepted practice in UK / Europe.

Thanks