sow wont accept babies

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Has anyone had any experiance with a new sow not excepting her babies? My Mom has a sow that is fine with her but when she puts the pigglets in she tries to bite them. She tries every 4 hours and has given the sow tranquilizer shots also. The other sows have farrowwed under the same conditions with no problems

-- Jeanette Springer (jeni@dwave.net), May 10, 2000

Answers

Jeanette, tranqs are the usual course of action. Some other remedies that don't tend to work as well include rubbing afterbirth (too late now) or the sow's dung on the piglets so she is more likely to accept them. Although I've never heard about this for pigs, sometimes people will put something like Vicks VapoRub on the mother's nose and on the little ones. Another is to confine her in a crate narrow enough that she can't turn her head and get at the piglets (some use a stanchion to make doubly sure she can't get them). Usually after a day or two she accepts the piglets. There has to be enough from under the sides of the crate for the piglets to come and go. It is a good idea to put a heat lamp off to the side for them, even if the other piglets haven't needed it. An old "cure" for this problem is to blindfold the sow. I'd think that would be a bit tricky to get on and keep on, plus if the sow rubbed it off when she's alone with the piglets-trouble.

If this is the sow's first litter, and/or if she is new to the barn, she may just be nervous and confused. But my best guess is that one or more of the piglets have some nasty needle teeth. You can either clip all the teeth in all the piglets, or try and figure out which one or ones have the pain-causing teeth. Use something like a wire cutter to do the job. There are things that can go wrong clipping teeth, if possible have someone with experience or a vet help at first. Gerbil

-- Gerbil (ima_gerbil@hotmail.com), May 10, 2000.


And if the teeth aren't the problem, and the sow continues refusing to accept her litter, cull her! And don't keep any of her babies for breeding stock.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), May 11, 2000.

Jeanette-

This problem is called savaging in the swine industry. I saw this problem periodically as a field manager for Cargill Pork and as a grower. Typically, gilts are the most prone to savage the pigs, as she just had a painful, new experience that produced little creatures now biting her nipples. But we had a 4th or 5th parity sow to kill 8 or 9 out of 11 pigs about 3 wks ago. Ordinarily this type event is not repeated from litter to litter, but if it's done 2x in a row, best to cull the sow. As you and Gerbil have stated, tranquilizer shots are the routine treatment for the problem, and in my experience, the sow ususally accepts the pigs after the shot. The tranquilizer we have used is of the brand Predef and has a fairly lengthy drug residue pre-slaughter withdrawal time - 40 days I think. If you should decide to make sausage of the old girl, it might be good to feed her for a while, until the drug residues decompose.

Rubbing Vicks salve on the nose is the normal treatment for sows that won't accept pigs fostered from another sow. They can tell that the new pigs are not their own by smell, and of course if all she can smell is Vicks salve, she doesn't know who to bite. We also use spray deoderant or baby powder and treat all the pigs as well as her nose. I don't think this treatment would help a sow savaging pigs very much as they don't want anything to do with any pigs, and the smell factor would be negligable - but nose spraying is cheap and easy and certainly won't hurt anything. Keep trying, maybe she will take them after after one of the shots.

Regarding clipping teeth, while I was working for Cargill, the recommendation was made to grind the needle teeth rather than clip them. People bought a Dremel tool and a grinder bit attachment and literally ground down the sharp tips of the teeth. Clipping sometimes crushes the tooth and allows infection to set in, usually resulting in joint inflammation later down the road. Now Cargill recommends not even touching the needle teeth, unless the bites are causing the sow pain and she isn't nursing well.

Ive rambled - sorry. Best wishes on raising some tasty pork chops!

-- N Mays (mays@raptor.afsc.k12.ar.us), May 11, 2000.


I had a sow kill off all but one piglet a day after farrowing. Rather then try to get her to accept the piglet (and risk losing the last one), I started feeding the piglet milk from our dairy cow. It's doing fine. If your lucky enough to have any other source of milk you may want to try this. Of course that sow is sausage...

-- Anne Tower (bbill@wtvl.net), May 15, 2000.

When my Tamworth sow pigged and wouldn't have anything to do with them, a fellow pig breeder brought over a 6 pac of cheap beer and gave one to the sow, he said first to relax the sow and second to help her let the milk down. It can sometimes take 2 beers but the sow usually has no problem after the first one. It worked and we haven't had to use it more than once.

-- Randy Denton (DentonRldntn@aol.com), December 03, 2001.


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