Wednesday, January 26, 2011

In a lather about rectums

January continues and so does our farm planning. We're no where near a ten year plan or a five year plan, in fact coming up with a one year plan is getting difficult. Especially since technically it will only be an 11 month plan, that is IF we finish up the plan before end of month.

Life keeps getting in the way.

The problem of today..the prolapsed rectum. Oh, don't be so sensitive. Farm blogs can't be about sunsets and soap making all the time. Well, its not my fault you haven't finished your breakfast. Get up earlier.

The rectum in hand, so to speak, belongs to one of our our smaller Red Wattle feeder pigs. A runt from the beginning. As soon as we noticed it, we tried to gently reduce it (Keith found the best angle and had the best results) and we separated the piglet from the others it was running with. Then I did some web research and talked to another pig farmer friend. Prognosis is poor and I expect we'll be euthanizing said piglet soon. To avoid future occurrences we'll follow some of the suggestions of the more experienced  pig farmers.
http://flashweb.com/blog/2011/01/rectal-prolapse-in-pigs.html


Seems the problem is often genetic and culling that gene from the herd (over time) is the best remedy. In the meantime prolapsed rectums can be avoided by providing large amounts of water, hay, good bedding and room to stretch out. Pigs are groupies though. They like to be with each other and in the winter have been known to lay on each other thus increasing abdominal pressure and adding to the problem.

So we looked at our largest group of pigs.

Looks cozy and spacious. Room for both the bacon and the eggs. But if you pan that eye of yours to the left


You can see how the hogs like to snuggle. Outside of this barn is lots of pasture and room to run but when it is cold pigs will lie together for warmth and debauchery.  So today, after Keith takes yet another hog to the locker, we'll talk about how to move which hogs where and when. Yesterday we tried to warn them of the upcoming moves

But when there is milk in their feeder, attention span is short.  So come on you fellow pig farmers out there. Tell us how you deal with the prolapse issue. How often do you see it , what do you do about it and how do you avoid it ? And thanks again to Walter Jeffries who covered the topic so much better , which I swear I did not know until I was researching this here blog and THEN looked at his blog to find he had blogged about said rectums several days earlier . That's my story and I am sticking to it. Your honor Sir.

4 comments:

  1. You are too funny! I love the way you write! Thanks for sharing with all of us 'not on a farm' people too.

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  2. Don't know much about prolapsed rectums in pigs, just sheep. We did a unorthodoxed method that made the vets cringe but worked like a charm. We learned from a rancher that could do cesareans on ewes, something vets don't do successfully or didn't at the time. Just a hint, we used an elasticator. If you're interested email me, I'll tell the the whole scoop. You see we'd tried the vets way with one of our own and watched as others tried their method also. Nope, it didn't work and was a REALLY big pain in the butt, taking days to fix. Ours was just 8 - 12 hours and a few minutes of our time. But the most important lesson of all we found out was indeed the problem was heriditary. Got rid of the effending ewe, no more problems in our lambs. I guess you know what you have to do. I hope she wasn't one of your favorites.

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  3. We put a small pvc pipe in the mucosa and a castoration band around the pvc and the mucosa falls off. You were correct to separate said pig because the will eat it and he will bleed to death. It happens because the pig is straining a slop will prevent this issue.

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