[ErikaMay]

So my place is an old farm and often i find things: some good some bad. One of the wallows started pulling broken glass to the surface which i then let dry so i could inspect and clean up....but some farm help did not know of this so they fill up the wallow and my pregnant sow lacerated her teat a day before farrowing. grrrreeeeat.

I figured leaving it was the best thing to do because the piglet would hopefully suck it clean...not like i could tape her teat down. I've tried that before.....

Anyway, so a week after farrowing it looks like shes got mastitis. I suppose calling a vet would be the thing to do but i don't trust any of the large animal vets out here.

shes producing milk, but pretty hard on those udders and uneven. Would a shot of penicillin be enough? how much?

She has as many teats as piglets, but one is getting the two back teats and then someone else doesn't get any so whoever doesn't get in first fights for a teat. I'm getting alot more facial wounds than i have ever had. Usually one or two little cuts, but this time theres some serious scrapping to get a teat. One piglet got bit so bad shes been walking around with her eyes all swollen up. unfortunately I don't have another sow in milk to foster one on to, so I'm thinking to remove one and give it away as a bottle baby. I set up a creep but they don't seem to know about it...i think the chickens are eating all the creep feed.

Any other suggestions? (this is why clipping needle teeth can be a good thing) Other than serious facial lesions they seem to be doing well. even the skinny ones i was afraid weren't getting enough to eat are now.

 

[njenner]

They sure look healthy. Poor Momma!

 

[ErikaMay]

oh,th ey are pretty good, but im a little anal about prevention and i dont want anyone getting infections and then having to deal with that. Peppercorn is a trooper. Lovely sow, too bad about the glass cutting her teat, though!

 

[njenner]

We bought old farm property too (not really a "farm" as it's only 1.3 acres); cleaned out an old shed of wire, rotted posts and dead opossums; pretty disgusting; it's now the chicken house/feed room; still digging up baling twine though but at least no broken glass!

 

[ErikaMay]

Sold the 11 day old for $40 in a matter of minutes of posting my ad. weird. Snatched piglet out of the pasture and into a carrier so fast he didn't have time to squeal. Momma later figured out what happened because she had some words for me later that night! Piglets are feeding much calmer and so she. No more fighting and biting.


I suppose i need to get a vet out to test for mastitis because maybe shes okay....all her boobies seem "hard" and the piglets on those teats are 2 of the biggest!