All doing well
18 03 2008
I’ve just checked Delilah and her litter of Berkshire piglets. All are doing well and that’s definitely all the piglets delivered. I’ll check them a couple more times before going to bed, moving them under the heat lamp once the piglets have started to doze.
The first hour is critical in keeping the piglets warm, dry and suckling, while the next 24-36 are important in ensuring the sow doesn’t roll on them. After that time, the piglets are almost always sufficiently developed and nimble to skip out of the way should the sow roll the wrong way or lie down on top of them. We already have eight of this litter down to go to various people, all of them previous buyers of our pig so we must be doing something right.
My.. my.. Delilah ! Well done girl! Nearly a Grand Slam team there!
They look fantastic, they are so glossy and healthy looking. You are obviously giving your pigs the best care.
That’s amazing. Is that a larger than usual litter? 12 piglets sounds like a lot of babies to feed. Do you change her diet at all to increase her milk production? They look like black slithery eels in this photo. Georgous.
That looks great. Just the other day on TV I saw a pig delivering a litter and she was ona grid. No straw, no nothing, and the little piglets just had to crawl over the cold iron to find a nipple. I couldn’t help but feel very sorry for them. Your (ah well, Delilah’s) piglets don’t know how lucky they are!
Interstingly the documentary showed how initially the piglets will fight (quite viciously, too) for the best nipple but settle down real soon and then get quite attached to their own nipple.
Also it seems pig milk comes in burts of about 20 second every hour or so and mom grunts in a special wy to warn the piglets to ‘latch on’ as milk is about to become available.
Amazing creatures.
Thanks for sharing the pics of pigs. I hope the litter thrives and that you’ll quickly find buyers for the remaining four.
Jandra
Delilah looks very contented.
Wonderful to hear all is well. Seems like a big litter - is that usual for the breed? Hope they all continue to thrive. Thanks for sharing.
A litter of 12 is bang on the money. Commercial litters in the UK average 11.9 piglets while the average number reared per litter is 9.8 piglets.
Delilah has now had three litters with 14/12, 11/11 and now 13/12. She has 16 teats, is in good condition and a good mother so she could handle a litter of up to 16, but 12 is a good number as it means less competition for teats among the piglets.
Delilah’s average is 12.67 piglets per litter with 11.5 reared (the latter will change in eight to 10 weeks when we wean this litter and know how many made it all the way through).
Doris’s record is 10/10 and 15/11, Dolores is in the last chance saloon with 0/0 (pseudo-pregnancy due to mycotoxin contaminated feed) and 2/2, and Daisy’s record is 9/9 and 9/9.
We have overall figures of 9.22 piglets per litter, with 8 surviving to weaning. We need eight piglets weaned per litter to cover our costs so we’re just doing it—no thanks to Dolores. However, the contaminated feed was not her fault and is why we’re giving her a last chance.
Take Dolores out and we have much better results of 11.57 piglets per litter, with 10.33 surviving to weaning. It quickly becomes obvious why pig breeders can’t keep a non-productive sow.
As far as birth weights are concerned, our Berkshires tend to have piglets that are lighter than the modern commercial breeds. Most figures that I’ve seen put the bulk of commercial piglets between 1.1 and 1.5kg at birth (around 24% being 1.1-1.3kg and 28% being 1.3-1.5kg. About 13% of commercial piglets weigh less than 1.1kg at farrowing.
The two biggest factors in piglet mortality are large litters and low birth weights. Only 68% per cent of commercial piglets weighing 1.1kg or less survive, rising to in excess of 80% for piglets weighing more than 1.3kg.
Big litters tend to have either lower birth weights or a much bigger ranger of birth weights (the latter is particularly bad as the biggest piglets have a huge advantage over the smallest ones). Big litters also tend to have more still births as the longer labour increases the risk of hypoxia (placental separation means the piglets run out of oxygen and either die or suffer serious setbacks).
Having said that, the figures are for modern commercial breeds that are larger animals than the Berkshires, that are bred to grow faster, and are bred for big litters to get more return.