hi the other day our sow had her litter but the first 6 babies that were born looked like they were mummiefied. also they were not fully developed.she also had 5 perfectly healthy piglets who are doing fine. what i was wondering has anyone heard of this before?should we keep her or cull her out? it was very disturbing to see those babies like that.if we don't cull her will this happen again?any info would be very helpful. thanks in advance! cindy

-- cindy young (cin_sue63@webtv.net), August 24, 2000

Answers

i do not alot about this but i know dogs can conceive on more then one day, i think it is about 5 days. if pigs do this maybe the mummy ones are premature,and for some reason the sow ovulated to long. when puppies are born the" runts" are the ones conceived last.i would think if her ovulation is off it could happen again, maybe by only breeding her 2 days in arow this could help, was she around the male her whole cycle?i breed my dogs 3 days and thats it i try to breed at the end of the heat inorder to catch all the eggs.

-- renee oneill (oneillsr@home.com), August 24, 2000.

i don't know about pigs but could it be that she lost her litter but the didn't abort. than she got pregnant again and her body kept them all? just a thought.

-- Amber (ambrosia75_@hotmail.com), August 24, 2000.

We are breeders of great danes and we had this happen to one of our litters. There were seven puppies in that litter but one was born dead and mummified as you described. We believe that this occurs because for some reason the puppy became dislodged from it's attachment to the mother and thereby could no longer be nourished and given oxygen so it died but because it was far enough along in the gestation, the fetus could not be reabsorbed and became mummified instead. This bitch had later litters and never produced a mummified pup again. My inclination on your pig was that something happened to detach those piglets from the mother and they became mummified but the others were not and therefore survived. Whether the cause was some kind of defect on the sow's part or some kind of outside affect such as a fall is not clear. I would recommend that you breed her again and see what happens. If it was an accidental fall or something similar, it should not reoccur. If it was a defect, it may occur again and in which case I would not use her again. Good luck.

-- Colleen (pyramidgreatdanes@erols.com), August 25, 2000.

I have read that when horses conceive twins, the weaker one is sometimes mummified and expelled when the viable foal is born. This happens because the fetus dies after it has been developing for a while, and is too developed to be reabsorbed by the mother's body. I don't know why this happened to the pigs unless she conceived more babies than her body could support.

-- Green (ratdogs10@yahoo.com), August 25, 2000.

Mummified is the exact technical term. It's not uncommon in pigs, although that number is very high. None, one or two in a litter of ten or twelve is more normal; with none being most common. If she has mummified piglets again I'd consider culling her and replacing her - either complete new line, or at least replace with one of her offspring, so you've got 50% new blood anyway.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 26, 2000.

Cindy, I have raised swine for the last 22 years. The only time we ever experienced mummified pigs was when we purchased bred sows in the middle of summer and transported them 300 miles in the middle of the night. All seven Chester White sows (2nd and 3rd litters for them) delivered mummified and live babies. We had 25 sows at the time and none of the others had this problem. We decided to keep them and breed again and they all had litters of 12- 17 live pigs. No more problems. The only thing we could imagine was that those sows pigs died in utero due to stress on the sow. We also breed Basset Hounds and have had a similar experience with a first litter bitch who has never delivered a mummified pup again. According to my vet, most litters of animals will have in utero deaths in the early stages of gestation and the fetus is reabsorbed by the dam without there ever being any visible evidence. You only get the mummies when they die in late gestation. I would keep the sow and give her another try. Take a look at your practices and see if they need to be changed. Does the sow a large clean pen with plenty of nutritionally complete food and fresh water. Does she have shade? Are there other animals with her that may be aggressive? Was she in excellent condition prior to breeding? Remember- You are not only caring for the sow, but also her unborn pigs. Best wishes, Terri

-- Terri Perry (tperry@stargate.net), August 29, 2000.