Post by Jessika on Mar 24, 2008 18:58:16 GMT -5
My daughter had 4 piglets that we had to take away from their mother as she was doing a horrible job. Very rare occurance for us, and usually I just let nature take its course but Zoie really wanted to have bottle piglets. They are 3 weeks old, were doing really well, vigorous and drinking raw cow milk and eating a milky grain mash. They sleep in a dog crate at night with lots of hay.
Last night it got really cold, this morning one was dead and another in very bad shape. The other 2 are fine. The sick one could walk and ate this morning, but went down hill about an hour later. No longer could walk and is jerking and his eyes are zig zagging back and forth like with brain injury or seizure, he was also very cold to the touch. We brought him in and put him next to the wood furnace and with a heat lamp. He has slowly warmed, and actually sucked on the eye dropper as we fed him milk. His eyes are better too. I don't feel he is out of the woods.
We raise a lot of pigs every year and are blessed with good sows and healthy pigs. We have a lot of pig experience and like I said I normally as sad as it is would let nature take its course, but Zoie is being such a good nurse and desperately wants to save him. So does anyone know of anything else we can do for him aside from keeping him warm and hydrated? I have this feeling like it got cold last night and the 2 little ones may have used all their energy stores to keep warm and then their blood sugar got really cold and the dead one slipped into a coma and death and the surviving one may have been on the brink. I hope he isn't brain damaged. What makes it especially sad is that a newspaper came on Friday and took pictures of her and her piglets for a spring cover. She is really sad that she will have to see the dead ones in the newspaper and be reminded all over again.
She wanted me to post and maybe there was some magic trick that would help. Thank you,
Jessika
Last night it got really cold, this morning one was dead and another in very bad shape. The other 2 are fine. The sick one could walk and ate this morning, but went down hill about an hour later. No longer could walk and is jerking and his eyes are zig zagging back and forth like with brain injury or seizure, he was also very cold to the touch. We brought him in and put him next to the wood furnace and with a heat lamp. He has slowly warmed, and actually sucked on the eye dropper as we fed him milk. His eyes are better too. I don't feel he is out of the woods.
We raise a lot of pigs every year and are blessed with good sows and healthy pigs. We have a lot of pig experience and like I said I normally as sad as it is would let nature take its course, but Zoie is being such a good nurse and desperately wants to save him. So does anyone know of anything else we can do for him aside from keeping him warm and hydrated? I have this feeling like it got cold last night and the 2 little ones may have used all their energy stores to keep warm and then their blood sugar got really cold and the dead one slipped into a coma and death and the surviving one may have been on the brink. I hope he isn't brain damaged. What makes it especially sad is that a newspaper came on Friday and took pictures of her and her piglets for a spring cover. She is really sad that she will have to see the dead ones in the newspaper and be reminded all over again.
She wanted me to post and maybe there was some magic trick that would help. Thank you,
Jessika
