[mrsbeckett]

Hi i am new to this forum and looking for a smallholding or similar to take a little orphaned boar pig that we are looking after. Percy is a few days old perhaps a week at best and was found wandering on the side of a road by a friend of ours he still had his umbilical cord and was badly sunburned but after a few days looking after he is doing great. We keep hens and rabbits and dogs but our garden isnt big enough for a grown pig to stay otherwise we would keep this little guy! He is under a heat lamp and on formula now and thriving so its time for him to get a permanent home! He knows his name and will return when called and is beginning to tray feed now that he's fattened up and stronger. We are in suffolk.

[Button End Beasts]

Does anybody have any advice on taking on such a small piglet? We could give him a home but at present have 1 sow, 7 piglets, 3  x 6 mo old weaners (boars) and 2 10 mo old Kunekunes.
3 piglets are going to new homes next week.
The weaners are going for the chop at the end of Aug. At the same time 2 more piglets will be leaving us.
When theanimals are gone, we plan to look for some more weaners.
Other than the movement/standstill issue, how could the little guy be introduced?
 

[Fowgill Farm]

Its very unlikely he'll take to feeding from a sow as he just won't have the instinct so hand rearing will probably have to continue, whenever you introduce him there will be bullying, rubbing some of your sows wee or poo on him might help him integrate with your litter but he will need to be strong enuff to cope with this.
He could really do with going onto a sow with a new litter so he could be rubbed with afterbirth and then he'd be accepted straightaway.
Word of caution, its likely he escaped from an outdoor commercial unit, they are usually very high health units but he may be more suseptible to coffs sneezes wheezes & diseases as they often don't have the immunity that goes with our 'kind' of pigs.
Hope you find a way to help him
Mandy
 

[Button End Beasts]

Thanks for that Mandy, I should have said the piglets we currently have, have been weaned now so we wouldn't want to try to suckle him.


I was worried about the disease aspect. Would he need to be isolated on our holding for a time period?


We actually couldn't take him now until the end of Aug as we have people coming to collect weaners and I can't have a new pig imposing a standstill. Still it would be nice to help the poor little thing.

[Fowgill Farm]

If you can't take him until the end of august anything he brought with him would have reared its head by then so isolation probably won't be a problem though a few days settling in quietly and keeping a watchful eye will benefit all parties.
The main problem you have is actually getting him onto your holding as i presume the people who have him currently won't be set up with herd number, cph? aml etc so using common sense and minimum fuss personally i would be tempted to move him without paperwork and pretend he was one of your litter as he'll eventually have to go for meat anyway on one of your slaughter tags but others may have other suggestions.
Bit of a minefield really and a lot of rigmarole for the current keepers unless of course they've already been to DEFRA or Animal Health for advice.
let us know how you get on.
Mandy

[mrsbeckett]

Hi again we hadnt done anything with DEFRA yet purely as we werent sure he would stay strong after his rough start and didnt want to faff with paperwork until we were sure he would be ok. as we arent planning for the little guy to stay long would it be best then to wait and slip in with a new litter as far as papers go? there are a few commercials he'd possibly come from but none would take a stray they werent sure was theirs.

[Fowgill Farm]

Hi again we hadnt done anything with DEFRA yet purely as we werent sure he would stay strong after his rough start and didnt want to faff with paperwork until we were sure he would be ok. as we arent planning for the little guy to stay long would it be best then to wait and slip in with a new litter as far as papers go? there are a few commercials he'd possibly come from but none would take a stray they werent sure was theirs.

Theoretically  if somebody was happy to do that its what i'd suggest, the commercials won't have him back because they keep closed herds healthwise and he's been out in the big bad outside world   collecting nasty immunity et al so if you can find somebody who'd have him and just include him in their count it would probably save a lot of aggro in the long run. if anybody caught up with it you'd have to plead ignorance a la micro pig land! I think the pigs welfare is the priority and the sooner he can be mixed with others the better.
Mandy

[jaykay]

Well done mrsbeckett for rescuing him 

Sorry, no pigs here so no good to you, but I hope you find him somewhere.

[Bumblebear]

Did this little pig find a home?

[mrsbeckett]

Update on Percy!
He is now nearly 4 weeks old by our guess, by friday for certain. he is being weaned and thriving, my mummy-ish worries of all diseases etc was unnecessary as he is a healthy happy boy! He is better behaved than the husband in the house  and keeps the kids happily amused, has shown remarkable talent for rounding up chickens (Babe mark 2 i reckon) and is generally a lovely pet!

He is still needing a home however, hubbs says since we have spent a lot of time and money raising him thus far that we should sell him or have an agreement that when slaughter time comes we could ask for some meat from him, im undecided on this, what would others thoughts be about that idea, is it rude or justified??

[Fowgill Farm]

He is still needing a home however, hubbs says since we have spent a lot of time and money raising him thus far that we should sell him or have an agreement that when slaughter time comes we could ask for some meat from him, im undecided on this, what would others thoughts be about that idea, is it rude or justified??

Glad to hear Percy is thriving, i think hubby has a point, if somebody would take him on to raise for meat you could say you wanted a either a quarter or half of him back for the freezer.
Mandy

[hughesy]

I think it's reasonable to want to recoup some costs but expecting a quarter or half a pig back when he goes is asking a bit much. You've looked after him for a few weeks and spent very little but whoever takes the pig on to slaughter weight will have put in months of care and a hundred odd quids worth of feed. I think the finding of a place for him to live out his days with other pigs is the priority.