Part two of a piggery farming
On the previous piggery article we spoke about the factorial ways of a piggery. Now let's get down to the technical side.
How to take care of a day old piglets away from their mother.
Caring for piglets take a high degree care and knowledge. Before starting a piggery one must real be clothed with knowledge on how to take care of the piglets to avoid high rate of mortality.
Other new born baby animals survive very well without their mothers and piglets seems to be struggling with that,and the reason piglets are resilient when separated from their mothers is because piglets are born in larger litters and they rely on each other for warmth and bonding.
Piglets are no different from human babies,the care they need is of the same standard. Piglets need warmth when they are born. So if you are going to separate piglets from their moms then take them to a very warm and dry place.
The temperature of the place you will be keeping the piglets should be around 30 to 35 degrees Celsius ,the rooms temperature should remain that way for the first few days or even up to a week. With every week passing by then you can decrease the room temperature with about 3 degrees Celsius.
The most advised heat object to use to keep the piglets warm would be a heat lamp,the piglets will be curled up in a corner in the room trying to make themselves comfortable,put the heat lamp 60 cm away from the piglets.
The need of warmth needed for piglets can't be emphasised enough. Keep the piglets away from any cold places such as floor tiles and outdoors on a cold night. Chills results to mortality on piglets. With every week passing by you will notice the piglets getting stronger.
Make a very comfortable bed for them, for their bed hay or straw with chip woods underneath for more comfort.Piglets enjoy rooting and chewing through the hay. The piglets were separated from their mother at a very premature age the least you can do is comfort them with a luxurious bed,they are your babies now.
While we are making the bed let's now think about what to feed the piglets. Like I mentioned before that those piglets are now your babies you must feed them their mothers milk. Yes get them sow milk,a sow is a female pig by the way.
Since we you can't bring the sow to feed it's babies, what do you do? Hmmmmmm what do you do when maternity leave is over and you are leaving your baby at home when you go to work? Pump milk into a bottle.
That's exactly what you need to do, get milk from the sow and pour into baby bottles to feed the piglets. Sow milk is best for the piglets because it contains colostrum and colostrum helps protect from disease and improve growth rates.
Well if you can't pump milk for your baby you as a human have a second option of formula milk right? That's the case with piglets too. If you can't find sow milk then the best second option is goat milk. Calf milk is also good for piglets too.
Goat milk is known as a good milk replacer. The milk must be warm slightly above human temperature when feeding the piglets. You can decrease the warmth gradually with time until cold. It's important to feed the milk warm so that the piglets remains cold. Moms understand this process very well.
Teach the piglet to adjust to being bottle fed,it's going to be difficult in the beginning but it will get better with time. You will need to force the piglets mouths open when feeding them but be careful because piglets have very sharp teeth from day. Fees frequently and the number of times you feed during the day will determine the number of time you will have to wake up and feed at night. The more times you feed during the day will lessen the night feeding.
At this stage the piglets will be living indoors so parasites aren't a problem however once grown and you decide on free range piggery then take drastic safety measures to ensure their safety from parasites. If your pigs/piglets will be in one spot for long periods of time then you consider administering a dewormer.
On the next piggery article we will talk about vaccination programme.
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