[Sudanpan]

One of our local vet branches down here (Rosemullion Vets) has been doing a few lectures aimed at smallholders who keep pigs. The 2 so far have been very interesting - first was various infections etc suffered by pigs, and last nights was issues with farrowing sows (mostly milk issues) and then some stuff on ecto and endoparasites.


One of the things that came up with the farrowing/milk problems was about the needle sharp teeth that piglets are born with and that can cause havoc with the udder, and amongst the piglets with lacerations allowing the entrance of infections etc. The vet talked about the practice of removing the teeth of the piglets - sounds pretty gruesome (though there was an ex commercial pigman in the audience and he said that afte the deed is done and you out the piglet down again they just go straight back to suckling without a problem) The vat was obviously pretty much in favour of the practice in order to avoid the possible associated injuries and infections for both sows and piglets.


What do people of here do with their piglets?

[oaklandspigs]

Don't cut teeth, don't dock tails.
 
We have had a few sows over the years that have had problems with piglets biting, but most mums just "shut the tap off" (ie roll onto stomach!) if they start to bite, and the piglets soon learn.
 
However we only have 35 sows, imagine if you had a (nowadays not untypical) 2000 sow unit, and you can understand why the commercial boys might have a different view.
 
Personnally don't think smallholders should need to do this in most/almost all cases.
 
 

[Sudanpan]

Don't cut teeth, don't dock tails.

In a way that was why I was so surprised to hear that this was a relatively common practice as I certainly didn't remember it from your brilliant one day course Oaklands 


Obviously the vets will always be seeing the worst effects and serious consequences, I'd much prefer the natural order of things to be in control - if it was that much of a problem presumably it would have got sorted out with piglets being naturally selected for not having needle sharp teeth

[SallyintNorth]

I worked on an intensive pig farm in the 70s, and we cut teeth.  To be honest, the piglets were only concerned about being picked up and away from mum / food / heat lamp; the actual cutting of the teeth didn't seem to bother them at all.

What I don't know and would love to is, are those just baby teeth?  and if so, when are they replaced?  Otherwise, what are we doing to the growing piglet's ability to forage and eat lovely things it finds?

(BTW, I didn't cut the teeth on my one litter so far and have no plans to do so on future litters. )

[Tudful Tamworths]

I've never cut teeth, but have friends who do it as a routine thing. I've never had a sow with teats so badly damaged that I thought it warranted cutting. I've seen it done, and it's over in seconds with no real stress to the piglet (different to castration/docking) but you have to be careful that you do it properly, as teeth which are badly cut and left jagged can cause even more damage. 
 
 

[HappyHippy]

We don't cut teeth or dock tails either. I've never seen a need to do it with any of mine, obviously in commercial set ups they have many more piglets per litter than traditional breeds and weaners are run in much bigger groups and higher stress conditions so the need to do it is there.
Karen

[kja]

i seem to recall some mention of teeth clipping in the pig magazine a while back.

we were talking to another breeder a few weeks back about our last litter not so much damaging the sow but each other fighting for feed she had a big litter (15) of large piglets so the biggest seemed to bully the others the scabs they caused each other lasted for weeks not nice to see. we were told to clip the 4 offending teeth back on each piglet should it happen again. we are not 100% sure either way it would save on wound cleaning 3 times a day.