The First Three Weeks - Piglet Care

Farrowing is not an emergency if you have prepared. It becomes an emergency when the sow arrives in a dirty, cold, badly laid out pen and you are looking for a heat source at midnight.

Prepare the pen before she enters it

Move the sow into the farrowing pen about 5 to 7 days before her due date. She needs time to settle and to build immunity to whatever organisms live in that pen, so the antibodies in her colostrum match the germs her piglets will actually meet.

1. Empty the pen completely. Scrape out all old bedding and manure.
2. Wash with water and detergent, scrubbing the floor and the lower walls. Organic dirt destroys most disinfectants, so cleaning comes before disinfecting.
3. Disinfect with a product approved for livestock housing, following the label dilution.
4. Let the pen dry completely. Drying time is part of the disinfection, not a delay.
5. Set up the creep area and test the heat source the day before, not on the night.
6. Wash the sow, especially her udder, belly and hind legs, before she goes in.

Signs farrowing is close

Watch for udder swelling and firm teats, milk that can be stripped from a teat by hand, restlessness, and nest building behaviour such as pawing and moving bedding. Vulva swelling and a small mucus discharge are also common. Most sows farrow within about a day of milk appearing at the teat.

What to do during farrowing

Your job is to be quiet, clean and available. Sit where you can see her without standing over her.

• Piglets normally arrive every 10 to 25 minutes. Total farrowing is often 2 to 5 hours.
• Wipe the mouth and nose of each piglet clean so it can breathe, then rub it briskly with a clean dry cloth or clean dry sacking. Rubbing dries it and stimulates it.
• Put each dried piglet under the heat in the creep, or straight onto a teat if it is strong.
• Do not cut the navel cord immediately. Let it break naturally or leave a stump of about 3 to 5 cm. Dip the stump in iodine solution.
• Do not pull a piglet out by force unless you have been trained. If more than 45 to 60 minutes pass with straining but no piglet, or if the sow stops straining and looks dull, seek experienced help.
• Only assist internally with a clean, short nailed, gloved and lubricated hand, and only if you know what you are feeling for. Dirty hands cause uterine infection.

After the last piglet

The afterbirth is usually passed within 1 to 4 hours of the last piglet. Remove and bury or burn it; do not leave it for dogs. Count what you have: born alive, stillborn, mummified. Write these numbers down the same night, because you will not remember them next week.

Give the sow clean water immediately. A freshly farrowed sow drinks a lot, and a sow that will not drink is a sow that will not milk.

A piglet is born with almost no immune protection of its own. The sow's placenta does not pass antibodies to the unborn piglet the way a human placenta does. Everything the piglet has for its first weeks of life comes through the first milk, colostrum, taken by mouth.

The closing window

For a short period after birth, the piglet's gut can absorb whole antibody molecules straight into the bloodstream. That ability falls off quickly through the first hours and is essentially gone by around 24 hours of age. This is called gut closure. After it, colostrum still helps protect the gut itself, but it can no longer build blood immunity.

So the rule is simple and absolute: every piglet must suckle in the first hours of life, and certainly within the first day. A piglet that gets plenty of milk on day two but nothing on day one is a piglet that will probably get sick.

How much

Published targets for adequate protection are in the region of 200 to 250 g of colostrum per piglet over the first 24 hours, and more for bigger piglets. You cannot measure this on a smallholding, so you manage it by observation: a piglet that has fed has a rounded, full belly, warm skin, and settles quietly. A piglet with a hollow flank, cold ears and constant searching has not fed.

Why big litters cause a problem

A sow produces a fixed, limited amount of colostrum, and she produces most of it in the first 6 to 12 hours regardless of how many piglets are drinking. With 14 piglets on 12 or 14 functional teats, the last born and the smallest lose the fight for the front teats, which give the most milk. They get the least colostrum at the moment when it matters most.

Split suckling - the procedure

Split suckling gives small piglets uncontested access. Do it on the first day, on litters that are large or uneven.

1. Wait until all piglets have had at least one suckle after birth.
2. Pick out the 5 or 6 biggest, strongest piglets.
3. Put them in a warm, draught free box in the creep area or beside the pen, with the heat lamp on. They must not get cold.
4. Leave the small piglets alone with the sow for about 1 to 2 hours so they can feed without competition.
5. Return the big piglets. Repeat 2 or 3 times through the first day.

Never hold the big piglets away for more than about 2 hours at a stretch, and never in a cold place.

Piglets that still cannot feed

For a very weak or chilled piglet, warm it first. A cold piglet cannot suck and cannot digest. Once it is warm, hold it to a front teat and help it latch. If it still cannot suckle, milk 20 to 30 ml of colostrum from the sow by hand into a clean cup and give it slowly by syringe into the side of the mouth, letting it swallow. Never squirt fast down the throat; the piglet will inhale it.

Fostering

If the sow has more piglets than functional teats, move surplus piglets to another sow that farrowed within about 1 to 3 days. Do this only after the piglets have taken colostrum from their own mother. Move medium sized piglets, not the smallest, because the smallest do worst in a strange litter.

A newborn piglet is born wet, with almost no body fat and a poor ability to control its own temperature. It loses heat fast, and a chilled piglet stops suckling, which makes it colder still. Chilling kills piglets directly and it also drives crushing, because cold piglets crawl up against the sow for warmth and lie exactly where she will roll.

Two animals, two temperatures

This is the point most new farmers miss. The sow is a big, well insulated animal that has just done heavy work and is producing milk. She is comfortable at around 18 to 20 C and suffers above that. Her newborn piglets want roughly 30 to 34 C. You cannot heat the whole pen to piglet temperature without cooking the sow and cutting her feed intake, which cuts her milk.

The answer is a separate creep area: a small heated space beside the sow, where only piglets fit.

The temperature ladder

Piglets need less heat as they grow and lay down fat. As a working guide, start at about 30 to 34 C in the creep for the newborn and reduce by roughly 2 C per week, so by weaning at 3 to 4 weeks you are around 24 to 28 C. Keep a cheap thermometer at piglet level inside the creep, not on the wall at your head height.

Building the creep

• Size. Big enough for the whole litter to lie down side by side without piling, and no bigger. A common size is about 0.6 by 1.2 m for a normal litter, enlarged as they grow.
• Solid floor and bedding. Concrete pulls heat out of a piglet. Put down dry sacking, chopped dry grass, wood shavings or a wooden board. Bedding must be dry; wet bedding is worse than none.
• A lid or hover. A simple plywood or board cover over the creep traps heat and saves a lot of fuel or electricity. This one change often doubles the effect of a weak heat source.
• No draughts. Block the gap at floor level on the windward side. Draughts at piglet level are more damaging than a low air temperature.

Heat sources

Choose by what is reliable where you are, not by what looks modern.

• Infrared heat lamp (commonly 150 to 250 W), hung about 45 to 60 cm above the floor and raised as piglets grow. Secure it with chain or wire, never by the cable. Fit a guard. This is the standard choice where power is steady.
• Electric heat pad or mat. Uses less power than a lamp and cannot be knocked down, but costs more up front.
• Hot water bottles or sealed plastic bottles of hot water under bedding. Free of running cost, labour heavy, needs refilling every few hours. Good for the first night and for emergencies.
• Deep dry bedding in a covered box. Where there is no power at all, a thick bed of dry chopped grass in an enclosed box with a small entrance holds a surprising amount of the piglets' own body heat. It is not as good as a lamp, but it is far better than a bare floor.

Let the piglets tell you

Look at them 20 minutes after they lie down.

• Piled on top of each other, shivering: too cold. Lower the lamp or add bedding.
• Spread out at the edges of the creep, panting, avoiding the centre: too hot. Raise the lamp.
• Lying side by side, touching but not piled, relaxed: correct.
• Lying against the sow instead of in the creep: the creep is too cold, too draughty, or blocked.

Across most systems, pre weaning mortality runs at about 10 to 20 percent of liveborn piglets, and can reach 25 percent or more in poorly managed systems. Of the piglets born alive that die, roughly half are crushed or laid on by the sow. If you fix nothing else in the farrowing house, fix this.

Crushing is rarely the sow's fault

Farmers often blame a clumsy or bad tempered sow. In practice crushing is nearly always the end of a chain that starts somewhere else. Understand the chain and you can break it at several points.

1. The creep is cold, draughty or unattractive, so piglets lie against the sow's warm body instead.
2. A weak, hungry or chilled piglet is slow to move when she shifts.
3. The sow is uncomfortable, sore footed, or on a slippery floor, so she flops down instead of lowering herself in stages.
4. There is nothing along the wall to give the piglet an escape gap when she rolls.
5. The pen is too small, so there is nowhere for piglets to be except in her path.

The high risk window

Most crushing happens in the first 72 hours, and a large share on the first day. That is where you should spend your supervision time. A piglet that survives its first three days is a much safer animal.

Low cost pen changes that work

• Fit farrowing rails. A pole or pipe fixed along the inside of the walls, roughly 20 to 25 cm above the floor and 20 to 25 cm out from the wall, creates a gap the sow cannot press into. This is the single highest value change on a smallholding, and it can be made from timber or old water pipe.
• Make the creep genuinely attractive. Warm, dry, covered, draught free, and placed where the piglets naturally go. If they choose the creep, they are not under the sow.
• Give the sow grip. A roughened or bedded floor lets her lower herself in a controlled way. Smooth wet concrete makes her drop.
• Enough space. A cramped pen forces contact. Give the sow room to lie fully stretched with piglets clear of her.
• Keep the pen quiet. Dogs, children, sudden noise and strangers make a sow jump up and drop down fast. That is when piglets die.

Supervision routine

Supervision is free and it beats equipment. For the first three days:

• Check the litter at least every 2 to 3 hours during the day and at least once in the night if you can.
• Each check: count the litter, look for a piglet trapped or squealing, look at where they are lying, feel whether the creep is warm.
• Move sleeping piglets back to the creep after a suckle if they settle by the sow.
• Watch for the sow's warning behaviour. A sow that roots and circles before lying is usually clearing piglets; a sow that drops straight down is a risk.

Farrowing crates

Crates cut crushing sharply but they cost money, restrict the sow, and are increasingly restricted in some markets on welfare grounds. If your capital is limited, rails plus a good creep plus supervision will get you most of the benefit. If you do use crates, keep sows in them only through the high risk period where your rules and market allow, and make sure the crate is the right length for your sows.

Record it

Every dead piglet gets a cause written in the book: crushed, starved, chilled, scour, born weak, unknown. After ten litters the pattern in that column will tell you exactly which of the five links in the chain you need to fix.

A piglet is born with only a small store of iron in its body, and sow milk is naturally poor in iron. In the wild, the piglet makes up the difference by rooting in soil. A piglet reared on concrete, slats or a clean bedded floor cannot do that, so it runs out. The result is iron deficiency anaemia: pale skin and ears, rough coat, poor growth, laboured breathing, and higher death rates from ordinary infections.

The arithmetic in plain terms

The stored iron a newborn carries is small, roughly in the region of 40 to 50 mg, while a fast growing piglet needs several milligrams a day. Sow milk supplies only about 1 mg a day. A piglet with no other source runs into deficiency within roughly the first two weeks, and the fastest growing piglets in the litter hit it first, because they are diluting the same iron into more body tissue.

How to supplement

• Injectable iron dextran. The standard method. Commonly 100 to 200 mg of elemental iron per piglet, given once in the first 1 to 3 days of life. Read the label of the product you actually buy, because concentrations differ, and follow its dose and route.
• Where to inject. Most product labels specify deep intramuscular in the neck muscle behind the ear, or in some products the inner thigh. Neck injection avoids damaging the ham, which is valuable meat.
• Hygiene. Use a clean needle, change needles regularly, and never inject through wet manure on the skin. An abscess from a dirty iron injection is a common and avoidable loss.
• Clean sods of soil. Where injectable iron is not available, placing a shovel of clean, fresh topsoil from a spot where pigs have never been kept into the creep every day or two gives piglets something to root in. This is a fallback, not an equal substitute, and it carries a parasite and disease risk if the soil is from a used pig area.
• Iron in creep feed. Helps once piglets are eating solid feed properly, which in most litters is too late to cover the first two weeks on its own.

Do not double dose. Iron injections given twice, or given to a very small weak piglet at full dose, can be toxic. Follow the label.

The standard first three days routine

Write this on the wall and do it the same way every time.

1. Day 0 (birth): dry each piglet, dip the navel in iodine, get it onto a teat, confirm every piglet has suckled, run split suckling on large litters, count and record born alive and stillborn.
2. Day 1: check every piglet has a full belly and is warm. Deal with the ones that do not: warm them, help them latch, or foster. Check navels for swelling or bleeding.
3. Day 1 to 3: give iron. Do the whole litter at one handling so you are not catching piglets repeatedly. If you also identify piglets by ear notch or tag, do it at the same handling.
4. Day 3: weigh or at least size the litter by eye. Note any piglet clearly falling behind and decide now whether to foster it onto a lighter litter.

Handling piglets properly

Catch a piglet by a hind leg above the hock and immediately support its body with your other hand. Do not carry a piglet by one leg, by the tail or by the ears. Hold it against your body so it feels supported and stops struggling. Work quickly and put it straight back under the heat. A calm, fast routine causes less stress than a slow, gentle, drawn out one.

The first week is when routine physical procedures are done. Each one should be justified by a real problem on your farm or in your market, not done automatically because someone else does it.

Castration - decide first whether you need it

Male pigs that are not castrated can develop boar taint, an unpleasant smell and taste in the meat, and they can be harder to manage as they mature. But taint develops as the boar approaches sexual maturity. If you slaughter young and light, taint risk is much lower.

Ask three questions before you decide:

• At what weight and age do I actually sell? Early slaughter reduces the case for castrating.
• Does my buyer or butcher reject or discount entire males? Ask them directly.
• Can I keep males and females separated so young boars do not serve their sisters?

Entire males also grow faster on less feed than castrates, which matters when feed is 60 to 70 percent of your cost. Where the market accepts them and you slaughter young, not castrating is a legitimate choice.

If you do castrate

• Age. Guidance in most systems is to do it in the first week of life, commonly by about 7 days, when piglets are small, recover fastest and are easiest to handle. Older pigs bleed more and suffer more.
• Hygiene. Clean, disinfected blade, changed or resterilised between litters. Clean hands. A clean, dry pen to return the piglet to. Most castration losses come from infection, not from the cut.
• Technique. Have an experienced person or an animal health worker teach you in person. Written instructions are not enough for a surgical procedure.
• Pain. Castration is painful. Where a veterinarian can supply pain relief, use it. Regulations on who may castrate and at what age differ by country; find out yours.
• Aftercare. Check each pig at 24 hours and at 3 days for swelling, discharge or a piglet that will not stand and feed.
• Hernias. Never castrate a piglet with a swelling in the groin or navel. Mark it and get help.

Needle teeth

Piglets are born with eight sharp needle teeth. Routine clipping of every litter is no longer recommended and is restricted in some markets. Sharp teeth only cause a problem when there is competition at the udder, which usually means the litter is too big for the teats or the sow is short of milk. Fix that first.

If you do have real facial injuries on piglets or torn teats on the sow, grinding the tips is preferred to clipping, because clipping often shatters the tooth and opens a route for infection. Take off only the sharp point, never cut into the gum.

Tail docking

Tail docking is done to prevent tail biting. Tail biting is a symptom of something else: overcrowding, boredom, draughts, feed running out, poor quality feed, or too few drinkers. On a smallholder farm with space and bedding, docking is rarely needed. Fix the cause rather than remove the tail.

Identification

You cannot manage what you cannot identify. Ear notching, ear tagging or a numbered tattoo done at the same handling as iron lets you track individual growth, treatments and which sows produce well. Keep the notch code written down somewhere permanent.

The welfare test

Before any routine procedure, ask: what problem does this solve on my farm, is there a way to solve it by changing housing or feeding instead, and am I doing it at the age and with the hygiene that causes the least harm. If you cannot answer the first question, do not do the procedure.