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Sow giving no milk! Help

4K views 28 replies 14 participants last post by  vtfarma 
#1 ·
Apologize for starting new thread, but this is a spin-off of a different thread to get more attention, I need HELP!

Gilt's first litter, 6 piglets now 14 hours old, mom not letting down milk. Her udder is very big, nipples are long, piglets have all tried and tried to suck.
They are giving up now, getting too tired. I have emergency calls in to 2 vets, but have not heard back (answering machines, off hours)

I have raw goats milk on hand, should I mix some of that with some raw eggs and hand feed them for energy? We may or may not get any Oxytocin or colostrum today, depends on getting a vet to call back. Advise please!

Oh by the way I put pumkin out for the mom, she turned her nose up at it.


 
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#2 ·
I guess I would give them the goats milk just until you can get some Oxytocin to get her milk let down. Did she deliver the placenta yet? I may even add some corn syrup for some extra energy for the babies. Does mom have any unusual markings (diamond shape) on her back, or any fever? Just wondering we had a litter that we lost most of because she had a disease she got from being around the turkeys. We vacinnate now but it was too late for that litter. We saved 3 out of 9 if I remember rightly. She gave no milk to speak of. I would at least supplement for now. The babies should switch back to mom if she starts producing.

Good luck!
 
#4 ·
vtfarma said:
looking at the picture it actually doesn't look like she has bagged up yet at all. The little ones are beautiful. I just love pigs...except that witch that we have that bites me.
Actually her udder is so big it drags on the ground. When she stands up you can see the line between her "belly" and the udder, about at the top of the dark circle on her belly in the first picture.
Well one of the vets finally called me back, I will get a shot of oxytocin in her by about 2:30, hope it's not too late.

The other vet (vet's assistant) also finally called me back. She was no help at all, even stating that oxytocin was just to encourage labor, would not help her let down milk...hmmm, she needs to do some internet cruisin', alot of people and places disagree with her, but hey what do they know?

I tried to get some raw goats milk mixed with raw egg into them. Then the vet said no egg just the goats milk, so they got another small round of that. Maybe I will try again with the corn syrup in it.
She moved into her shelter, so I moved the babies in with her, she laid on her side to let them nurse and was grunting softly the way she should be when nursing, but it still looks like they aren't getting any.
 
#5 ·
vtfarma said:
I guess I would give them the goats milk just until you can get some Oxytocin to get her milk let down. Did she deliver the placenta yet? I may even add some corn syrup for some extra energy for the babies. Does mom have any unusual markings (diamond shape) on her back, or any fever? Just wondering we had a litter that we lost most of because she had a disease she got from being around the turkeys. We vacinnate now but it was too late for that litter. We saved 3 out of 9 if I remember rightly. She gave no milk to speak of. I would at least supplement for now. The babies should switch back to mom if she starts producing.

Good luck!
Yes she delivered the placenta, no strange markings. No fever, eating and drinking, acting fine.
Adding orn syrup seems like a good idea! Thanks.
 
#9 ·
Update. Moma pig finally decided to let her milk down this afternoon before the oxy got here. :goodjob: The babies looked more energetic and less dehydrated, so I waited to see if she would continue to nurse them. She has. They don't look roly-poly like a rabbit kit after nursing, but like I said they look and act better.

This morning they were all baggy skin and bones :(

The oxy is a single shot already drawn up in a syringe, I have it in a baggie in the fridge. Whew! They sure did look on their last legs this morning. Now I just have to keep her from laying on them!

How long will the oxy keep? I want to keep it around in case this happens again in the future...
 
#10 ·
marvella said:
i know from personal experince that a mom must be well hydrated to produce milk.

is the sow drinking well? perhaps some corn syrup in her water to encourage her??
She dug right in to her dinner tonight! And the water level is down in the water bucket!

The pictures I posted were taken very early this am, by later in the morning they looked WAY WAY worse. Now they are back to looking more like the picture of them.
 
#11 ·
As long as the oxytocin is kept in the fridge it will keep for a long time provided that the vet drew it out of a fresh bottle. I'm sure it would last as long as you may need it for this sow.

I'm curious are piglets similar to calves as far as colostrum is concerned? If a calf doesn't get colostrum within 24 hours it is very hard to keep alive. Is it the same case with piglets?

BBBuddy, hope your piglets keep doing well. :)

Heather
 
#12 ·
Thanks Up North, I hope this doesn't happen again, but I'm glad to have it in reserve!

Yes, piglets need colostrum, one reason I was so worried. Plus the vet said no one around here he knew had pig colostrum. I had some goat colostrum powder in the freezer, mixed that with some goats milk, warmed it all up nicely, and went out to give it to them, which is when they already looked better, so they never got it or the oxy.

I figured goat colostrum would be better than nothing....

I'm hoping now she is past her first litter, this won't happen again with her!
We still had all 6 late last night. I haven't checked this morning, there was a skim of ice on the water this morning so I didn't want to disturb them in the cold. When it warms up I hope to see all 6 alive and kicking!

I guess it was colder then I thought the night they were born!
 
#15 ·
Well, we're not out of the woods yet, found one this a.m. really cold and still, but still alive, very skinny. Have her in the house wrapped in a towel on top of a couple of soda bottles full of hot tap water. Lots of shivering!
Got some 100 degree goat milk with colostrum and corn syrup into her, she's perkier, but very weak. :(
Well, time to go back out and check the others....
 
#19 ·
hi, you can buy pig OR cow milk replacer that you mix with water. REALLY works wonders. Once the babies get a taste of it , the next time you go to set it down watch out cause they will knock you over. The stuff works wonders. This is sometimes used if sow starts to dry up early too. BOB
 
#20 ·
are you running a heat lamp? we use a heated creep area year round, even in july. The warm spot away from mama prevents crushing and keeps them warm, if they snuggle with momma they get smashed more often, In addition in warmer weather get a fan and cool one corner of the pen, the pigs will avoid that corner and momma won't leave it.
 
#21 ·
Yes, as Redhog said.. you definitely want to give them a place where they can go away from the mom. We had a litter in July and we set up a heat lamp in the stall and put a board, oh about 6-8" off the ground and ran that across the back of the stall. They would go under the board and snuggle w/each other and the lamp. It kept momma from squishing them.. We had 7 piglets and didn't lose a one.

Jenn
 
#23 ·
Thanks for your replies. The baby died late yesterday. :(

Redhog's suggestion worked, I got a lamp with a 60 watt light bulb and put it in one corner (safely) and put the remaining 4 piglets under it. One kept going back to mama though.

I wasn't prepared for such COLD weather, this is Arizona, and it should be much warmer even at night. We just had 2 nights in a row of record breaking cold....the closest reporting station to us was !!! 10 degrees !!! below the previous record low for this time of year! Sometimes the only luck you have is bad luck...

We are off grid, so don't even own a heat lamp, yikes the watts!!

Looks like we have 2m and 2f left, 3 are getting bigger, I think the 4th is "sucking hind tit" and falling behind, is it possible to "retrain" it now?

On another note, I now know why the new pbp sow was free, she is one mean motha, haha. Not averse to trying to bite every chance she gets.
Her two babies are growing fast, they looked really stunted for 10 week olds. In fact at 10 weeks they were half the size of my first pbp babies at 6 weeks!
Maybe we will just fatten up the sow and have a BBQ. Hope it was from her circumstances, not genetics...we'll see how the babies turn out.

My first two are sweet but shy. New mom is being very good about us crawling in the shelter and handling her babies! However they are brother and sister, so we wanted another unrelated pbp for some outcrossings....

I really like having the pbps, I think I would not enjoy the BIG pigs so much since I don't have experience handling hogs.
 
#24 ·
People need to realize that it is perfectly normal for the "milk" to arrive later after birth. More often the milk is there and everything is perfect...but a lot of the time it will take a day or day and a half. I didn't see in your post how you determined that there was no milk. Sometimes it is just the colostrum which is thick and slow to come. Then the milk comes later. We have had mares, sows, cows and cats that have all caused us concern with a lack of milk over the years and we finally realized that it is pretty normal. I think a lot of "bottle" babies of many species are the result of over-anxious owners not having enough patience. Just an observation.
 
#25 ·
John, the piglets were sucking and sucking and getting nothing, they were getting too tired to even try after 12 hours, and by 14-15 hours they were looking VERY dehydrated, bony, and weak.

Probably didn't help that they arrived 5 days early, and in a cold snap. We had record lows - 10 degrees below last record low for here this time of year! I know it was cold, guessed mid 50's, but by morning there was ice on the water, and we were not ready for that. This is AZ, should have been way warmer. My bad.
 
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