[Fowgill Farm]

We have a sow who we thought was due to farrow around 28th of this month, about ten days ago she started to show signs of farrowing building nests, destroying everything in her path and had a hint of milk but despite constant surveillance nothing happened, from this I assumed the boar must have caught her a cycle earlier than I had noted so knocked back the due date to around 10th as of last night she still hadn't farrowed making her a fortnight overdue, I was advised by vet to let nature take its course.
At 4am this morning she started pushing and finally after intervention she delivered a perfectly formed dead piglet at 6.10am , half an hour later another, a hour later she expelled three mummified piglets which were very small and then finally another beautiful perfect dead piglet. No afterbirth yet but the accompanying goo is horribly coloured, shes had a LA antibiotic and we suspect parvo.
Now the reason for me telling you all this is that we do have a rampant fox population and a dog and I used to buy an Ery/parvo combined vaccine for my pigs, that is until they made it prescription only and tripled the price so I stopped vaccinating, now I wonder is the price I've just paid losing a whole litter. So my advice would be to vaccinate your breeding stock. I'm hoping the sow will now have some immune and in retrospect I will vaccinate the rest of the herd, but penny pinching.........lesson learn't the hard way.
Any advice very welcome
Mandy

[Bionic]

Awww, very sorry to hear about all the piglets. As you say, a hard lesson learnt.

[waterbuffalofarmer]

I am so sorry to hear that. :'(Thanks for the advice by the way, it may come in handy.

[Rosemary]

  Rotten thing to happen - thanks for sharing. We always learn more from mistakes than from things that go well.

[SallyintNorth]

So sorry to hear that Mandy 

Thanks so much for sharing the story - hopefully it will save some future heartache 

[Roxy]

So sorry about your losses.  To be honest, I had never thought of parvo.  We do not have dogs in the fields now, but foxes, yes.  I think we are all guilty of trying to cut back on costs.  I am steel reeling from the cost of wormers for pigs, goats, sheep, horses etc......

[Tamsaddle]

Is your sow very sad too - I know they aren't humans but I wonder whether they mourn for their dead babies in some way?

[Tudful Tamworths]

I'd have to check back, but I think Porcilis Ery & Parvo is only about £30+ from my vet, and that gives me 10 doses. Not much money per dose. The erysipelas vaccine on its own is even cheaper - about half that price, I think.

[Mammyshaz]

Parvo virus is usually host specific. Canine parvo virus affecting dogs ( canines so foxes too ) where porcine parvo virus affects the pig species. There are parvo virus for most species but they dont usually cross species.

 I'm no expert on pigs at all but is testing worth the cost to find out for sure. IF it is porcine parvo then is it on the farm or brought in from shows or breeding or some other source?

Doesn't help with the stress you or your girl are going through at the moment 

[Fowgill Farm]

Thanks for all your kind thoughts & words.
Been doing some research and porcine parvo is apparently endemic in all pig herds and if you tested 99% of your pigs would confirm as having it, but it lays dormant until something triggers it, in small herds it can die out thro culling and vaccination, we think Gigi may have contracted it later on in her preganacy due to the fact 3 of the piglets were perfect, apparently it start in one foetus and works it way thro the rest, as there are no clinical signs in sows or gilts you don't know its there until something like this happens.
Gigi is well in herself, bit confused and full of milk, she keeps rooting in her bed looking I presume for her piglets, poor girl I feel so sad for her. Going to get her some strawberries to cheer her up.
thanks again
mandy
 

[Eastling]

So sorry to hear that Mandy  Hard lessons to learn.

[Marches Farmer]

Bad luck.  Have you had very hot, humid weather like us? We had something very similar happen in the same weather conditions last July.  One of our sows farrowed yesterday morning (11 good uns) but she hated the recent weather - fortunately we've been able to shower her with tepid water up to 8 times a day.

[Fowgill Farm]

Yes we've had the hot humid weather been topping up wallows for England! Water bill's gonna be sky high!
Don't think the heats been a contributing factor as even though we brought her in for farrowing she still went out for a maraud & a wallow every day, they have a spare wallow in the veg garden for emergency wallowing if they're out free ranging on a hot day
She seems very well in herself going to give her another shot of LA Abs today and that should see her right, vet has suggested giving her two cycles before putting her back to boar.
best mandy