Piglet has Diarrhea, HELP!!

[LexsPeeps]

I have a small piglet that was found almost dead from the cold, mom didn't want anything to do with her. I warmed her up and I did get mom to lay down long enough twice to get the piglet to feed a little. Everything was going well until last night she started having diarrhea. I'm feeding Unimilk multispecies plus probiotics, nobody around here had swine milk replacer, I fed Kid Colostrum the 1st day. Feeding about every 2 hours. She is 3 days old today, she had normal poo yesterday during the day. She is still eating, but having a watery yellow diaarhea now. I have no idea what to do! Please help!!

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I have a small piglet that was found almost dead from the cold, mom didn't want anything to do with her. I warmed her up and I did get mom to lay down long enough twice to get the piglet to feed a little. Everything was going well until last night she started having diarrhea. I'm feeding Unimilk multispecies plus probiotics, nobody around here had swine milk replacer, I fed Kid Colostrum the 1st day. Feeding about every 2 hours. She is 3 days old today, she had normal poo yesterday during the day. She is still eating, but having a watery yellow diaarhea now. I have no idea what to do! Please help!!

I have a very rough time with rejected piglets. Natural selection sometimes the mother knows something is wrong. You are doing the right thing by feeding every 2 hours.
Please sign up over at http://www.backyardherds.com/ . There are much more swine folks over there.
Be sure and state the type of piglet it is how many piglets were in the litter and how cold it was the night it was rejected. Perhaps what time what kind of housing did you provide Etc. is it a Heritage pig or is it a miniature pig?

The diarrhea might be caused by the milk replacer. Nothing equals the mother's milk and nutrition. The pig might be healthy and doing fine it's just the chemical that you replaced her milk with that may be causing the scours. You should get a second opinion on backyard herds dot-com. I am a member there as well, they have helped me a lot.

 

[LexsPeeps]

I will sign up there, thank you so much, she is a pot belly pig, I assume she is a runt bc of her size, the others were bigger than her

 

[Lazy Farmer]

I will sign up there, thank you so much, she is a pot belly pig, I assume she is a runt bc of her size, the others were bigger than her

How many piglets were in the letter? Potbelly's traditionally have small letters up to six. How many teats does she have? We are breeders. When we select a guilt for breeding we count how many teats the female has. Our breeder females have 15 to 17 teats to accommodate room for enough piglets. Are you sure she had enough teats on her belly to feed her entire etter? Also the runts sometimes get pushed away from teat time and to have the mother in a restful position willing to stick around long enough for them to feed. Generally when the rest of the piglets are done feeding, she will get up and move and not allow enough time for the weaker ones that could not muscle in at feeding time to have their share of time after the fact. Again how large was the letter?

 

[LexsPeeps]

The site wouldn't work, said there was an error and I had to try again later . Theres 6 in the litter, and mom has 12 teats

 

[cassie]

When I was a little girl, my mother successfully raised a number of orphan baby pigs. She fed them a baby formula made with canned milk. Back then people often raised their babies on a canned milk formula. Commercial infant formulas were not available. It was canned milk diluted half and half with water with a little Karo syrup in it and maybe something else. You might be able to do a little research and find out exactly what it was. Anyway, the pigs thrived on it. The Karo was to prevent constipation but you don't need that. Personally, I am not a fan of milk replacers made for any species. For the diarrhea, try a little kaopectate. Since she was chilled, she may have pneumonia and some antibiotics will be necessary. You might be able to get some Tylan or penicillin at the feed store.

 

[LexsPeeps]

I myself am not a fan of milk replacers myself either, if I had fresh goats milk available I would definately have done that instead but I couldn't get any in time. Big reason I'm getting goats later this year. We called the vet and let her know what was going on and she prescribed her an antibiotic and a dewormer, fingers crossed and prayers that she makes it.

 

[cassie]

You would be surprised by the variety of orphans I have raised on cow milk in one form or another. Goat milk too. I just used what I had. For some reason, I have found that canned milk can be tolerated by orphans like puppies and kittens that have trouble with fresh milk. No, I don't know why. Something that might be helpful is some live acidolopholis (sp) culture. It is a beneficial bacteria that helps in the digestion of milk and helps populate the gut with good bacteria. You can get it at the health food store or in the health food section of the grocery. You can get it either in liquid or powdered form. The liquid is found in the refrigerator case. I always bought the liquid form. You just add it to the milk. It is cheap and it is something that cannot possibly hurt. If scours are due to indigestion, it helps a lot. It also is very helpful for babies that are on antibiotics because it repopulates the gut with the good bacteria that can be killed off with antibiotics.

 

[LexsPeeps]

Really? Cow milk? I've always heard never to give cows milk, was it fresh or from the store? Or just the dehydrated stuff? This milk has probiotics in it to help support gut health, you don't think it would be to much to get the liquid stuff too? I will definately try to find it.

 

[cassie]

You can't believe everything you hear. Personally I would use canned milk simply because that is what my mother used and the baby pigs did great on it. Here is something else I think might be worth trying. This is a formula worked out for baby goats and I think your pig might do well on it too. You take a gallon jug of whole milk from the store. Pour off about a quart. Add to the jug a cup of buttermilk and a can of evaporated (not condensed) milk. Fill the jug back up with some of the milk you poured off and shake it up a bit to mix. This is higher in nutrients than regular store milk and the buttermilk adds beneficial bacteria. I suspect sow milk is richer in nutrients than cow milk so this may be closer to what your piglet needs. If you decide to try it, even though the buttermilk has bacterial cultures, I would still add the acidopholis (sp) to the baby's bottle.

I am sure you know this, but baby pigs can't regulate their body temperature very well and need to be kept warm. I can't remember what my mother did to accomplish this.