New Pig, New Problems

8/1/2013

New pig a week ago.

Three weeks ago Saturday, I traveled down to the Snohomish Valley to check out a Berkshire gilt. I'd decided to invest in a new gilt and I wanted her to be a heritage breed, but not a Large Black Hog. In other words, I wanted to try to do some heritage cross-breeding. The farm that I was visiting seemed legit from the e-mails I'd exchanged with the farmer, and he had a good reason to be getting rid of a full-grown gilt. The price was right, so I figured it was worth a look. I rented a trailer and headed on down.

Things were okay at the visit. The farm was a little ramshackle, but the pigs seemed to be in good health. I did a thorough check of the gilt I was interested in, and she looked fine. I agreed to buy her....and then we spent a good deal of time trying to load her into the trailer. Unfortunately, this farmer didn't have a good system for loading pigs--you need a narrow chute that is tall enough and strong enough that you can push a pig from behind. It didn't help that he had to catch up some younger pigs for a different buyer just minutes before I came. After about an an hour and a half, with the gilt exhausted and approaching dangerous heat levels, I said that it wasn't going to work out and I was ready to leave. He said he's deliver her for me for free the next week, and I figured that would be just as good. I agreed, but a part of me thought that perhaps I should have just cut my losses and backed out of the deal.

A week later the farmer arrives with the pig, and we get her easily loaded into a barn stall that I use for loading and unloading. She was understandably stressed, but otherwise looked fine. Money exchanged, deal done. I observed her overnight to make sure there were no emergent signs of disease, and led her out into the main pasture area the next day. She had been getting a diet of bagels, soaked whole barley, and commercial feed, and she didn't seem to have much interest in my feed. She was super excited for some of the barley that I had grown last year, so I used that as my lure to get her into the pasture. I figured I would gradually introduce her to the other pigs (the boar is in a separate area right now) to make sure everyone got adjusted slowly. She was very nervous of the other pigs at first, and I had to use feed as a lure to get her to go close. After a few days, I let them meet each other and was surprised to find the voracity at which the old pigs tried to run off the new pig. Anytime she got close, they would nip at her butt until she ran away. I was a little surprised, but figured this behavior would go away after they worked out their oinking order. Unfortunately, a week later, it hadn't, and to make matters worse, she was limping.

I took a look at one of her front hoofs, and noticed a horizontal crack. She was moving around okay, and I figured I would keep an eye on it and go from there. By yesterday, things had gotten worse. The hoof had broken off below the crack, and I noticed more of her hooves were cracked. This morning, she barely wanted to stand at all. Here's how her feet look at the moment:

Broken hoof on front foot with another break on the other claw.

Damage?

Possible horizontal crack on dew claw?

Her other front hoof was underneath her, but it also had developed a crack. She's likely to have broken hooves on both front feet. Right now, nothing looks infected, and I have her in a contained area away from the other pigs where she doesn't have to move much. I don't know if she will recover, and I don't know what caused these problems. She seemed fine when I got her, but I didn't examine her feet. I know biotin deficiency can cause these problems, but it's pretty rare. If there's little chance of recovery, I'd prefer to end her suffering now, but she is still eating and drinking and doesn't look to be in pain as long as she's laying down.

Any advice would be appreciated!

11 Comments

Walter Jeffries link

8/2/2013 03:37:29 am

If she is of breeding potential otherwise I would give her time and be sure that she is getting a well balanced diet and minerals. Pigs are resilient and heal up. My first suspicion is this is diet related.

If she isn't going to be a feeder then to market, to market.

Jeff

8/2/2013 03:54:53 am

She is definitely of breeding potential--although I don't want to breed her if she has genetic issues related to foot problems. She's looking better today than yesterday, although still very lame. She's willing to stand to graze and root, which is a good sign.

George

8/2/2013 10:36:46 am

I take it you did get her some biotin? Do any of the cracks appear to be a potential infection site?

If the place you get her from was ramshackled as you called it, it is possible her diet wasn't complete there either. Keep us updated, she'll pull through !

Anne Biedenstein link

8/2/2013 02:31:23 pm

This is an exerpt from the online Merck Veterinary Manual.
Hope she continues to improve.

Foot Disorders
On occasion, grower/finisher pigs have overgrown claws or bruises and cracks in the wall or sole of the hoof. The floor type and condition is perhaps the single greatest factor in determining if lesions develop or resolve. Floors with wide slots enable digits to fall between the slats, causing damage. If the floor is too smooth, the balance between growth and wear of the horn is lost; if it is too rough, the hoof wall, coronary band, or skin above the hoof is damaged so that infectious agents can penetrate the foot or adjacent joints. Footrot then develops.

An absolute or intermittent deficiency of biotin results in weak, flaky keratin that makes hoof walls susceptible to cracking; flaky skin accompanies hoof lesion and there is generally poor reproductive performance in the herd. As gilts are prepared for breeding, supplementing biotin may be helpful. Recommended inclusion rates of biotin to strengthen hooves and improve reproduction are 1,160 μg/day for gilts and first parity sows, followed thereafter by 2,320 μg/day for all lactating sows.

bruce king link

8/4/2013 02:26:01 pm

you've got two issues here; one is the foot issue, and the other is introducing a new pig into an existing herd.

You won't see much talk about adding pigs to an existing herd in the industry literature because, frankly, they never do it. Modern pig husbandry overwhelmingly uses all-in, all-out management of identically aged and sized animals. The pigs are kept in the same social group for their entire lives, and never see or interact with a pig that they didn't grow up with.

The pigs you have are in a social structure. They all know where they stand on the pecking order, and they maintain that order very carefully. Status is very important to a pig. When a new pig comes in, each pig in the existing herd will do their best to make sure that they are 'above' that new pig, fearing loss of status. Status means you eat first, sleep where you want, get first choice of mud or forage, and generally impacts every area of a pigs life. They will defend their position vigorously.

if you toss a new gilt into an existing herd she's going to get beat up. if there's room to retreat, and multiple food and water locations she will run away when picked on, and generally have a rough life for a few weeks. After a month or two this will settle down, but if she is forced to approach the other pigs for food or water or shelter, they're gonna bite her.
Here are several things to try:
Move a smaller number of them to another area and add the pig at that point. Everyone is in a new place, and there will be some sorting, but the disruption will help minimize it. Reintroduce the smaller herd into the larger one after a week or two.
Add several gilts at the same time -- yes, there are still issues, but the old herd now has to chase around a number of new gilts, and the new gilts all have a friend to bunk with. Eventually the herds will merge.
Add your new gilts as piglets; first in a pen next to the existing herd, and then running with them. big pigs tend not to pick on smaller ones if there is sufficient food and shelter for all. Better yet, breed your own replacements so your herd doesn't have to deal with a stranger at all, and learn to AI to bring in new bloodlines or genetics.
Finally, I would recommend NOT removing the gilt from the herd, as she'll have to go through this same process every time you re-introduce her. If a pig is not working out in a herd and I end up removing her, that's it for her on my farm. She's going into either a different herd, or to market, or to another farm.

Feet are very important to a sow. They have a lot of weight to support, and foot problems are very difficult to treat as they use them constantly; any sores or wounds will not get a chance to rest. I'd give her two weeks and evaluate her after that. The damage to the hooves might be deficiency, may be related to the flooring where she came from, or might be your field. Her feet will either heal or not; I cannot suggest anything that will make that better or more likely. In the event of an infection, antibiotics may help, but you don't have that option if you're organic, and you don't want to pay the vet bill to get the good ones.

Jeff

8/4/2013 03:29:28 pm

Thanks for the advice Bruce. The good news is that her foot is not showing any signs of infection (yet) and she is moving around much, much better. Just a slight limp now, compared to barely wanting to stand up a few days ago.

I definitely can see that adding a gilt as a piglet/adding genetics through AI is much less stressful. I needed an older gilt to get back on schedule for next year's farrowings, but perhaps that wasn't worth it.

With the gilt feeling much better, I let the smaller pigs in first, then the larger sows today. Initially, the three week old boars were terrorizing her, but by this morning she had figured out that she was at least 7 times larger then them. There has been much fighting since I've let the sows in. Usually a minute or so of heavy duty grunting, oinking, biting, and chasing followed by an hour or so of resting. Rinse, repeat. This gilt is quite a bit bigger than even the 2.5 year old sow, so she will probably end up being the top pig in the end, but it's interesting to watch the oinking order get settled. I gave them separate sleeping, eating, drinking, and wallowing areas which definitely seems to help keep the stress to a relative minimum.

Hopefully her feet will hold up.

Jeff

8/4/2013 03:30:24 pm

Three month, not three week old boars. That would be something!

George

8/10/2013 09:09:46 pm

So how have things been with her this past week?

Jeff

8/11/2013 01:25:07 am

Better, then worse. She was doing fine for the first part of the week, but there was still quite a bit of fighting. She was at least spending her time close to the rest of the herd. Then, a few days ago, one of her claws on the other hoof partially broke where I'd noticed the split before. That must be pretty painful because she doesn't want to put any weight on it. Now, she's not moving much at all and spending most of her time as far away from the other pigs as possible. I'm bringing her water to make sure she drinks. Not too optimistic at the moment.

Jeff

8/11/2013 02:27:16 am

Just checked on her and she's doing much better than yesterday.

Jeff

8/17/2013 03:41:24 am

Latest Update. No limp at all. She's about 75% integrated with the herd. No signs of infection. Pigs can be amazing.

New Pig, New Problems

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