Piglet Nursery (Farrowing Barn) Video

http://www.virtualfarmtours.ca
See this Canadian pig farmer's farrowng room where sows give birth. Each litter can contain eight to twelve piglets.

Transcript:

John -- This is one of our farrowing rooms where the mother pigs or sows are brought to have their babies. And we generally like to have them in here about a week before their going to have their babies.

The card that's up above them all; each sow has its own card and on there there's the date when we expect them to have their babies. No they don't always hit that date. Sometimes they're a day or two early and generally they're a few days late. The pen is designed for the sows and the piglets comfort in mind.

Generally we know she's going to have babies because she becomes restless and irritated and she starts acting a little bit different. She might quit eating her breakfast or her lunch and she'll lie down and start farrowing or having her babies. That can take anywhere between an hour or three or four hours, depending on how many she's going to have. Now a nice litter of pigs is about 12 piglets, but anywhere from eight to 14 is quite normal in pigs.

Once a piglet is born, it generally moves around to the mother and tries to find one of teats to get that first milk which we call the colostrum which is very important to the piglet. It includes many antibodies and important things that the piglet needs to get a good start in life.

As I go through these rooms every morning, I like to count the little pigs, and in general I like to see at least 10 piglets on every sow. Like I said, they can have more than 10 when their born and if they get more than 14 it might become an issue with not enough teats for pigs so then sometimes what we do is take some of the little pigs and give them to another mother that might have only eight. We try to get them all up around the 10 mark. The mother sow can nicely take care of 10 or 11 piglets.

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• OFAC
• swine
• hogs
• pigs
• hog
• farm
• piglets
• Ontario
• agriculture
• Canadian
• pork
• production
• farrowing
• animal
• welfare

[colonm65]

Well we just got a piglet today and its supposly the one that does not grow. We trying to find a home for it because we have too many cats and one dog. Good thing about her is she in good terms with the dog and the kitten, but the others they just mind their own business. Bad thing is she makes a mess when drinking water. And we not sure what she eats because I dont really want to give her junk food well anytype of crap food.

[wurtzgood]

I'd like a dime for every farrowing crate I pressure washed as a teen growing up in the Northern plains, hard word! Specially if you got 1000 or so sows, these piglets need to get castrated, have their teeth and tails clipped, vaccinations, and the little bastards are hard to catch when they a week or so old, then you gotta wean em and clean pen for next set...

[FakeAssKilla]

i would like to play soccer whit one of them lil pigs

[marra1uk]

@1979rrhemery im in the same situation as you, our sows tend to have 18 and we only nurse 14 to 15 on her the rest are fostered off once the colostrum has been taken to sows that have had their piglets weaned at 21 to 25 days

[marra1uk]

@swisschoco on our farm our gilts have 18 to 22

[1979rrhemery]

please let me know how you are able to get a sow to nurse 18 piglets? What breed? How many teats do they have? Just curious, I am able to get my sows to farrow 18 but they would never be able to nurse 18 piglets, without a few starving out. And how do you keep the body condition? Wouldn't she milk her back fat off? Please reply, I am very interested in your techniques. Just I have been in the hog industry for 8 years now and have never seen that.

[CreekValleyCritters]

Comfortable! Where is the bedding - where is ROOM! This sort of farming should be banned!

[starbabe58]

cute piglets

[coonhunterbarbie1487]

nice pigs

[swisschoco]

Only 10 piglets! I can make sows to have 18 piglets!