It is two of my Tamworth piglets, now 2.5 days old. As they were being born, which I attended, I noticed two had what looked like extremely long, soft, white toenails that were far longer than normal. Within 24 hours these had dried up on 3 legs resulting in black toenails but solid, hard, and normal shaped feet. The fourth leg, back one both times, the whole bottom of the foot was by now looking completely deformed, with what looked like extra tissue, almost club foot appearance, broken and weeping. The photos attached are of the least bad piglet - both have been to the vet yesterday and the other piglet, where the open weeping tissue had spread up to the knee, has been treated and bandaged, so I cannot take a photo at the moment.
The vets do not have a clue what it is, so they are on antibiotics and may or may not pull through - other than this problem they both seem healthy and are feeding OK. It is unlikely to be a breeding problem as she was AIed with Yorkshireman semen from Deerpark, and the two piglets from her first litter, with Royal Standard Deepark semen, were both perfectly formed.
As Robert and Lill have also had a deformed piglet leg this summer, and it has been a summer without precedence for zillions of mosquitoes, we were wondering whether there could, just could, be any connection with Schmallenbergs, even though it is claimed that pigs are meant to be unaffected. However, it is such a new disease, how can anyone be a million per cent sure? Certainly if there are any other piglets out there being born around now with very obscure deformities, perhaps the authorities should start looking into it. Or it could just be a one off bad luck thing - in a post in February this year, Oaklands were quite adamant pigs couldn't get it.
So there we go - time will tell what happens to my two, keeping a close watch and my fingers crossed for the moment. The rest of the piglets appear to be 100% normal, as were the two that were stillborn (just) at birth. Tamsaddle
Topic: Birth defect (Read 11463 times)
