Auntie Brownie Farrows 3rd Parity

Note: This is the first time we had to clip piglets’ teeth because Auntie Brownie, now on her third parity, got very angry whenever she nursed her piglets. No teeth cutting was needed on first and second parity. The months June-July were very hot and humid. I think this aggravated the problem of mastitis, making Auntie Brownie very sensitive to piglets’ teeth. This time, we also had a high crushing number of 4 piglets, with 12 live born piglets.  8 were weaned successfully.

 

Gestation 111 Days
Serviced by Pinky Boar on April 9, 2018.
Farrowed July 29, 2018.

 

During gestation, Auntie Brownie made loud grunting noises indicating call for bath. I gave her a few baths during high daytime temperatures. She also created a pit, cooled it with her urine and lay in it. Unfortunately, high humidity and dew point during these months didn’t help. We have changed feeds, employ wet feeding, installed an electric fan for Auntie Brownie’s next farrowing and see if we will get better results.

 

Nest Building

Auntie Brownie began building her nest a day before farrowing.

Nest building started a day before farrowing. I saw Auntie Brownie pawing the ground so I gave her some dry banana leaves. She took it and began nest building, then rested. She kept at this for the whole day, seemingly too lazy to build a satisfactory nest. This must be because of the heat and humidity.

Auntie Brownie with her 1-day old piglets.

Farrowing, July 29, 2018 at 10AM

The farrowing was without incident, 12 piglets born alive. However, within the first hour of birth, piglets started fighting which upset Auntie Brownie. Although fighting at the teats within a few hours of birth is not unusual, I found it unusual that Auntie Brownie got hurt so easily, and the fighting was frequent. I think that piglet fighting is an indication of poor milk flow. This may confirm the problem of mastitis or agalactia due to heat stress.

Piglets at 3-4 hours old, after nursing they sleep away from the mother and each other because of the hot and humid weather.

In the video above, Auntie Brownie is very tired and obviously having problems nursing her 1-day old piglets. Intervention is needed when this happens.

July 30 – 2 piglets were crushed to death and 1 was injured by overlaying. It seemed that Auntie Brownie was deliberately overlaying her piglets because she was hurt and upset by them fighting at her teats. Brownie’s teats seemed hard when I pressed them in the morning, but by late afternoon, her teats seemed much softer. It is possible that her teats were sensitive because of mastitis. I also wondered if the piglets’ teeth were sharper than the usual we’ve had before. I inspected the teeth of one of the dead piglets and I saw needle teeth that were thin and sharp, instead of the usual triangular shape with the pointed tip. Not all the piglet’s teeth are like that, and I am not sure if such teeth do make a difference.

July 31 – Teeth-clipping went well this morning, there are 9 piglets left. 1 piglet got crushed last night. Brownie drank water but did not eat. White discharge. Piglets went to the mother to suckle and the situation seemed better, although nursing is less frequent (every 1-2 hours); hoping later nursing will be on regular. I hope things progress from now on and that the mother quickly recovers.

August 1 – It is Day 3. Suckling is much more peaceful since teeth clipping. The injured piglet remains feisty and active. Piglets look forward to exploring the Escape Hatch/Restaurant/Garden after nursing, particularly brightens up sluggish piglets. The injured piglet seem to be the first to want to go out. Nursing was hourly and sometimes 15-30 min intervals. Brownie is drinking and eating well. She is getting Amoxicillin antibiotics in her water (for 3 days).

At 3 days of age, the piglets already know the way out into the garden.

In the video above, piglets are 6 days old and go out into the garden several times each day, particularly after nursing.

August 5 – Piglet got crushed this afternoon. We were unable to revive it. This was a 7-day old piglet, very active and was seen fighting with litter-mates just a few hours ago. I believe this is accidental crushing, which happens when the piglet is unable to squeal so the mother is unaware that a piglet is being laid over. The piglet may have been very tired and was deep asleep.

 

The ground in front of the trough has become tough and slippery and this area seem to be where crushing fatalities often occur. This area will need to be dug up and wood shavings spread to soften the ground and reduce slipping.

In the video above, piglets are 11 days old. The piglet with the injured leg fights for milk. She is also the first one to go out of the escape hatch to play in the garden.

Video above shows Auntie Brownie interacting with her piglets, very much aware that I am filming her. With 4 or possibly 5 piglets crushed by the mother, the piglets have developed a very cautious relationship with their mother who at the same time is their source of life and nutrition. Through ambivalent socialisation with their mother, the ability of piglets to develop this alertness at the first few hours of birth is crucial to their survival.

Weaning the Piglets

September 3 – Auntie Brownie separated from her piglets, now about 38 days old. However, we put the runt with her, the one that got injured by crushing. We usually sell piglets at 45 to 55 days old, or after all signs of scour, if any, are gone. There was some scouring in this litter starting on day 2-3 after weaning which was treated with Apralyte. Because of early treatment, scours were gone in a few days.

We separated Auntie Brownie from her piglets but we let the little runt, Limpy, stay with her. Here’s Little Limpy warming up on top of her mother.

The Problem of Crushing

For 2019, we are implementing changes which we hope will reduce the incidence of piglet mortality due to crushing. See Piglet Crushing Management.

Here are portraits of Auntie Brownie’s piglets.

Related posts:

Number 3 Farrows 4th Parity Number 3 Farrows! Sow and Piglets in an Alternative Farrowing System 4th Parity for Auntie Brownie and Foster Care Piglets Two Farrowings in December 2016 Update on Porcine Parvovirus

A Food Forest Garden

Below are photos of some of the produce collected from the garden on a daily basis. Some days are better than others, depending on the season. There is a lot of variety in our small harvests and our meals are designed around such variety.

We don’t produce crops in the way prescribed by conventional agriculture. You won’t see rows of the same crops grown together in tilled plant beds. Low in cost, labour and maintenance, high in diversity, this has been a way of securing food in tropical areas since prehistoric times. But with the advent of modern agriculture for commercial food production, these edible forest gardens and the old practices and traditions that created them, were lost. Sadly, even in non-commercial settings, food forest gardening is little known, as majority of the population became educated in the ways of conventional agriculture.

Below are three photos depicting most agricultural practices.

Our Food Forest Journey

We are creating our food forest garden on land that has been developed as a coconut plantation in the midst of government-led campaigns for copra production. Synthetic fertilizers given out by government were regularly used. Coconut trees were planted very closely together, many less than a meter apart, such that an area of less than 2,000 square meters had 60 coconut trees. The land was also planted with exotic and invasive mahogany and gmelina trees in a similar campaign for fast-growing sources of timber. The land also had a history of cattle grazing.

Rocky and sloping and such a history of use spanning over 75 years left us with land that is very difficult to manage. The only way, it seemed, to get anything to grow, was through the forest garden.

Our food forest garden includes livestock. We have native chickens and muscovy ducks that free-range. These fowls are problematic because they destroy seedlings and young plants. But this problem also became the opportunity to use companion planting to protect plants during the vulnerable stages of growth. The goats are put in the garden on a leash when some areas need pruning and trimming. The food forest surrounds pigpens with soil flooring regularly filled with coconut leaves, banana leaves and wood chips collected from here and nearby areas. When the pens are cleaned, bedding material are composted and used to amend the soil.

Piglets foraging in the garden.
Ducks in the garden.

Rain water harvested from the roof of our home and the pigpens is used to water the garden. The gardens close to the house are irrigated with greywater from the kitchen and shower. Kitchen and table scraps are composted in sections of the garden that need improvement. Anything trimmed or cut down from the garden returns to the garden.

Plants have grown well irrigated by greywater through a simple wastewater treatment system.
Ornamental plants thriving in an infiltration planter. Water from the kitchen goes through a simple homemade grease-trap, and into this planter.

Rain gardens were dug up to control flooding and soil erosion. Rain gardens also became protected areas for such crops as taro which ducks loved to attack. Pioneer native bushes and trees were allowed to grow, attracting native birds, insects, lizards and other species. They also proved to be resilient trellises for climbing crops such as winged beans, yam beans, lima beans, passionfruit and gourds.

This year, 2019, it will be our 9th year working this land. A lot of improvement have taken place and the land is more productive and diverse than it has ever been. Our yield is growing though still far from the yield of land worked in the manner of conventional agriculture. But our inputs are much less invasive, less expensive, less labour-intensive and more environmentally beneficial.

The north garden plots, trying to protect the soil from erosion and the vulnerable plants from attacks by ducks and chickens.
The south garden plots, located on sloping land, wood borders used to lessen erosion and protect from duck attacks.

We still have more work to do which develops and evolves slowly over time. Invasive trees will need to be removed and replaced with native varieties. The number of coconut trees will have to be reduced so more diverse crops can grow.

If you would like to grow crops and raise livestock for domestic or commercial production, please consider the food forest gardening method. A good introduction to the food forest garden is by way of Masanobu Fukuoka’s natural farming.  However, while food forest systems seem to have its roots in the tropics, a lot of information about food forests on-line are written for temperate and sub-tropical climates. But by understanding the basics, observing your natural environment and working with people who have kept the tradition of forest gardening, you can create your own food forest garden. Good luck!

Related posts:

Open-Pollinated Seeds (OP) from the OPA The Cacao Experiment A Gardening Challenge How We Discovered the Rain Garden La Niña and Outlook for Philippine Forage Crops Planting Calendar for the Philippines

Natural Housing for Backyard Pigs

We have been keeping pigs for almost 9 years now and our accommodation for pigs, in a tropical backyard setting, have changed over the years. Here’s how things developed, plus an outlook for the future.

The Tethered Pig
As often practised by people in our village with very limited space and resources, we kept pigs on a leash and tied them to a tree during the daytime and then tied them under the house at night. If we had 2 pigs we had to keep them a distance from each other. Otherwise their leash would get tangled up and they may get hurt. Our first fatteners and a gilt were tethered pigs. When our gilt was about to farrow, we built a little pen for her. The pigs were fed in modified large plastic containers.

In the video below, the gilt Miss Piggy is tethered next to the goat house under a tree.

The video below shows a conventional concrete pigpen commonly found in our village. A boar and 5 sows are kept in individual pens.

The Penned Pig
We started with a small pen, about 8 square meters. It was made of strong bamboo and had nipa palm fronds for roofing. The flooring was just soil with some sawdust and rice hull mixed in. We kept a fattener in this pen. Later, we enlarged the pen to about 20 square meters. We raised our first boar, kept two gilts, had a sow farrow in this larger pen. We also kept 1-2 fatteners at a time here.

In the video below, Bootleg, who had just undergone hernia repair surgery, plays ball in a pen made of bamboo and wood.

In the video below, sow Number 3 farrowed for the first time, to 4 piglets in this bamboo pen. The piglets are 2 weeks old in this video. We installed a creep rail with warming lamp which the piglets never used! In the latter part of the video, Number 3 is shown eating from the wooden trough. After many months of use, water leaks out of the trough and floods that area.

Later, we built two more pens of about the same size, so that we could rotate the pigs and allow the empty pens to fallow and get cleaned up. The two new pens were made of coconut and some scrap lumber, bamboo, nipa and tarpaulin roofing. The pigs were fed in large plastic container or modified rubber tires. Later, we decided to build troughs out of mahogany planks. The troughs can be filled with food and water from outside the pens. The pigs couldn’t turn over the troughs so the food and water didn’t get spilled. This made feeding much easier. We tried installing pig drinkers but as the pigs got bigger they destroyed those things.

In the video below, five new piglets enjoy the soil and grass in a large pen made of coconut lumber, some bamboo and scrap pieces of wood. In less than a week, all that grass is gone.

In the video below, 3-day old piglets play fight in the same pen shown above. The piglets were born in this pen.

Over 2 years, we used these pens. We kept a boar, 3 sows, a few fatteners in these pens. We had 4 farrows in these pens. Over the years, these pens required a lot of maintenance and emergency repairs. The wood rotted and pigs escaped several times. Ducks went into the pens and got eaten by pigs. The roof rotted and leaked when it rained and flooded the pens with mud. The pigs loved the mud but when there was too much mud, there was no dry place for them to sleep in. We desperately needed better pens.

In the video below, 2 young boars are fed on a tire cut in half. When it rained and the pen became very muddy, it became impossible to keep feeding the pigs this way. We got stuck in the mud!

The Better Penned Pig
At the moment, our pigs are in their new accommodation built 14 months ago. The designs of the pens were inspired by the following technical illustrations. These illustrations are from Swine Plans published by the University of Tennessee, Institute of Agriculture. We modified the designs to suit our location, climate and needs.

The pens have half meter walls made of concrete and over that are fences made of strong mahogany wood planks. The fences have gaps for good ventilation and sun exposure. The fencing for the boar pen is higher (about 4 feet high) than those for the sows (about 3 feet high) because the boar is much bigger and can jump out of the pen. These pens are a spacious 22-25 square meters. The farrowing pen has a creep rail and an escape hatch. The escape hatch allows the piglets to go out into the garden. The farrowing pen has LED lighting and an extra socket for a heat lamp for piglets born in the cool season.

All the pens have concrete troughs built along the side wall of the pen. The troughs can be filled with food and water from outside the pens.

In the video below, sow Auntie Brownie is with her piglets in the maternity pen. The trough and creep rail is visible, as well as the escape hatch behind the creep rail.

Two of the pens are right next to each other with a gate in between. The boar stays in one pen and the sow is placed in the other. This boar-sow contact allows the sow to go in heat and makes it easier for us to detect when the sow is in heat. If it is time to mate the pigs, we just open the gate in the middle (see video below).

The roofs of these pens are made of galvanised iron sheets, built at a height of 9-12 feet for ventilation and sun. Unfortunately, the roofing material are thin and may need to be replaced in a couple of years. The gates of the pens are made of galvanised iron pipes which we painted over. The floors of the pens are soil mixed with saw dust and many other natural materials such as dry banana leaves and coconut leaves. We have also sprayed the floor of the pens with lactic acid bacteria solution (LABS) and added some IMO (indigenous microorganisms).

Improvements
We need to keep the sow more comfortable in the farrowing pen during the hot summer months. We plan to put an electric fan in the farrowing pen and direct it towards the creep rail. We hope this would encourage the sow to farrow next to the creep rail which will protect the piglets better from crushing.

We need to fence an area of the garden around the farrowing pen so that when the piglets are out in the garden, they will not wander away outside of the property where they could be in danger (particularly by dogs). The fenced area needs to be large enough for the piglets to run around in and should at the same time keep the piglets away from sections of the garden where we don’t want them to go. The fences should be short (2 feet or less), strong but not imposing and should be made of material where vine plants can grow over. At the same time, the fences should not get in the way when we rotate sows from one pen to another.

Coconuts and mahogany pods fall on the roof of the pens and if this persist, the roofs will be destroyed. We plan to cut these trees. This will allow the fruit trees, native trees and shrubs already growing in the area to flourish and provide shade and forage for the animals.

We would also like edible fruiting vines to grow up the pigpens and over the roof. This will provide shade and food for humans and animals. We are working to have more vegetation grow around the pigpens.

We will also have to continue using IMOs and LABS in our pigpens. We think that these, plus sufficient ventilation and sunlight, destroy pathogens in the pens. When we fallow a pen, that’s also when we harvest good organic compost which enrich the gardens where soil is very poorly and rocky.

Basic Principle of Natural Environment for Housing Pigs

Below is a good video that explains the design principle of housing for Natural Farmed pigs. We did not implement this design completely in our pigpens but we do our best to keep the principle of re-creating something as close as possible to a natural forest environment, the natural home for the domestic pigs’ ancestor, the wild boar.

Here is another interesting video (below, in 3 parts) that explains the importance of environment, welfare and public health in pig farming. Several examples of sustainable and profitable systems shown may be useful for those seeking better ways of raising pigs.

Stocking Densities for Pigs

There are several recommendations based on welfare regulations on stocking densities for pigs. Most of the figures are based on accommodation in temperate or non-tropical settings. We believe that because of high temperatures and humidity in the tropics, the minimum space required for pigs should be larger than those recommended in the link below.

Refer to The Garth Pig Stockmanship Standards on Stocking Densities.

We will post updates once we have implemented the improvements planned for next year. If you have any questions about our pig accommodations, don’t hesitate to leave a comment and we’ll do our best to reply.

Related posts:

A Better Pig Accommodation Sow and Piglets in an Alternative Farrowing System Natural Farming: Does it really work? Number 3 Farrows! Auntie Brownie Farrows 3rd Parity Number 3 Farrows 4th Parity

Homemade Dishwashing Liquid

Dishwashing liquid is great, it cleans, removes oil, disinfects, smells nice and foams a lot. But before the thing was invented, people did fine with laundry soap, detergent bar, detergent powder, detergent cleansers. And long before that, people used washing soda, soda ash or sodium carbonate. And way before that, until now, in some parts of the world, people have been using sand, ashes, twigs, stones, leaves and rice hull. I often use dry leaves to clean the scum, oil and dirt from the pigs’ water buckets and those work great. I have also found rice hull or even rice or large corn grits great for cleaning the inside of bottles and containers.

Lately, I decided to make my own dishwashing liquid, for use in the kitchen, for hand washing plates, glasses, cutlery and cooking utensils. Homemade dishwashing liquid works fine and is much less irritating to the hands than commercially prepared ones. If you want to give it a try, here’s three ways.

Recycled Soap Bits

Collect soap pieces, put them in a container, add a bit of water. That’s it. Great if you have a container that’s a bit wide and shallow so you can stuff a sponge in it. If you have hard water, add a half teaspoon of vinegar to the water at the rinsing stage. Just keep adding water and soap pieces as needed.

You may also use a detergent bar. Cut a small piece, stick it in a container, and use a sponge. Lately, we’ve started using a luffa gourd sponge instead of the plastic ones. Luffa gourd sponges last much longer!

Detergent Powder

Mix a tablespoon of detergent powder with a cup of water and a half teaspoon of vinegar. Put the solution in a squeeze bottle or you can recycle plastic bottles with a hole punched on the cap. Or recycle an old liquid soap pump dispenser. Shake well before using.

Soap Flakes and Borax

Put 1 tablespoon of soap flakes or grated soap in a stainless steel pot. Turn on the heat and simmer, while mixing with a wooden spoon. Don’t let it boil too much or the soap might start degrading. When the soap flakes are dissolved, turn off the heat and pour in 1 tablespoon of borax powder. Mix well. Let the mixture sit for overnight or several hours, stirring every now and then, until the soap is thoroughly dissolved with the borax. If you have hard water, add a half teaspoon of vinegar. Pour everything into a squeeze bottle (I use an old mustard plastic container). Always shake well before using.

Lots of Savings!

We’ve saved quite a lot by making our own dishwashing liquid. I buy the ingredient from the local supermarket:

  1. Soap Flakes 250 grams – 15.95
  2. Borax 500 grams – 30.00

So the DIY Recipe costs about 3.75 per 300ml while Joy Dishwashing Liquid costs 41.75 per 200ml. That’s a LOT of savings.

Some notes on using

In hand washing, the best procedure involves scraping away food particles and washing out the oil before using the dishwashing liquid. Additionally, most dishwashing liquid (homemade or store bought) work best when used with hot water, with washing done in the sink or a bowl. Soaking the sponge in a combination of water and dishwashing liquid work quite well too.

What is the shelf-life of homemade dishwashing liquid?

Prepare homemade dishwashing liquid in small batches. These are best when used right away or at least within a week rather than stored for weeks or months. The solution degrades over time.

Will the vinegar ‘un-saponify’ the soap?

Saponification is actually an irreversible process. But a lot of the problem with mixing large quantities of vinegar with soap in high heat is the separation of fat and the alkali solution in soap. So don’t use too much vinegar and don’t heat the soap and vinegar together. The heat shock and acid can cause the soap emulsion to degrade. If used as described in the recipe above, and you have hard water, the vinegar will bind with the calcium/magnesium ions in the water and help the soap work better.

What does borax do?

In the above recipe for dishwashing liquid, borax converts some water molecules into hydrogen peroxide which cleans, disinfects and bleaches. This is best done when washing with hot water.

I don’t have borax. Can I use hydrogen peroxide instead?

Soap and hydrogen peroxide (3% solution) mixed together is fine, but don’t prepare a large batch. Use within 7 days or less. Over time, hydrogen peroxide and soap react, degrading the solution.  The mix also needs to be protected from light, so you’ll need an opaque container for the solution. Half a tablespoon of hydrogen peroxide should be enough.

If you do use hydrogen peroxide, you may add vinegar (4% acidity) but only if the hydrogen peroxide is a weak solution (3%) and a small amount of vinegar is used. Strong concentrations of hydrogen peroxide and vinegar mixed together create strong paracetic acid which is corrosive.

A word of caution

With DIY dishwashing liquid or any cleaner, be careful about mixing household chemicals. Never mix together bleach, ethyl or isopropyl alcohol, acetone, chlorine, muriatic acid, oxalic acid, ammonia, toilet cleaner or drain cleaner. These could result to dangerous combinations.

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Piglet Crushing, Understanding and Managing

The Figures in Loose-Farrowing Systems

According to studies, average pre-weaning mortality in loose farrowing systems commonly range from 20-33%. This is twice greater than that normally occurring in confinement farrowing crates. The major cause of piglet mortality in a loose-farrowing system is piglets being laid on by sows (often called ‘piglet crushing’). A survey of 40 producers using loose-farrowing systems in the midwestern United States indicated that average pre-weaning mortality of piglets was 26.4% and average litter size weaned was 6.7.

Our Figures in Loose-Farrowing Systems

Our sows farrow in a loose-farrowing system, a  pen of about 22  square meters. The flooring is a mixture of soil, wood shavings and other dry and green organic matter. The pen has a small fenced area (creep space) and an escape hatch for piglets. The sow is given nesting materials (dry banana leaves) on the day of farrowing. Our current crushing rate – with minimum supervision – is 20%. Mortality due to disease is 0%. The sows, now 3 years and 4 months of age, are healthy and strong, and our piglet post-weaning mortality rate is 0%. The average litter size weaned at 45 days is 8 piglets.

Note: Minimum supervision means we do not intervene during farrowing. We provide nesting materials as soon as the sow asks for them and then we leave the sow alone, watching at a distance of 25 feet. We save piglets from crushing when we see or hear them. Because of minimum supervision during farrowing, we are often unable to determine stillbirths or whether piglets were live born and died through crushing. We have decided to include these mortalities in our crushing statistics.

Farrowing Crates and Farrowing Pens

The use of farrowing crates with supervision can reduce crushing mortalities down to 5-10%. However, piglets and sows raised in these conditions often have a higher incidence of disease and post-weaning mortality than their loose-farrowing counterparts. The use of farrowing crates are under scrutiny for welfare concerns and their use has been banned in some countries. Apart from pasture and loose-farrowing options, there are new designs of farrowing pens to address the concerns of producers. Below are two examples (first and second video).

The videos below show strip-grazing farrowing paddocks and indoor and outdoor systems in the UK.

How we try to reduce the incidence of crushing in a loose-farrowing system with minimum supervision

  • Give sufficient nesting material. The nesting material of choice in the tropics is dry banana leaves. An abundant amount is necessary, between 15 to 20 large leaves or more depending on the farrowing space. The sow should have plenty of time to process the materials and build her nest. Our sows take 12 hours. She will shred the banana leaves. Sometimes, she is not able to do this well enough. Thus we give her banana leaves that are thoroughly dry so they are easy to shred. We may also cut the banana leaves along the length of the midrib so it is easier to shred and the tough midrib will not trap piglets.
  • Keep the sow in good body condition. Do not overfeed the sow. Don’t make her overly fat. If the sow is too fat and heavy, she is not agile and flexible. She cannot avoid crushing her piglets and cannot get up quickly when a piglet squeals when crushed. Crushing is also common when the disparity in size of sow and newly born piglets is very large. Thus, research shows that crushing tend to be higher with older sows/higher parity. Our sows are nearly 4 years of age and we do our best to keep them fit and agile.
  •  Feed the sow on a regular schedule. We feed our lactating sows three times a day and we stick to this. Make sure the piglets are not in the path of the sow when you feed her, otherwise, she may step on her piglets in the excitement to eat.

  • Motivate sows to farrow next to the creep space. This isn’t easy and we’re trying to do this by working with the sow’s natural instincts and not working against it or by force. In a loose-farrowing system, we can’t dictate where the sow decides to build her nest and farrow. Our sows always build their nests away from the farrowing rail/creep space. The sows always want a location that is away from the gate, the feeding trough and the creep space. However, the sow often begins to nurse her piglets away from the nest 24 hours partuition. This is the time when we try to get her to nurse her piglets next to the farrowing rail/creep space. We do this by putting forage material for her to eat near the farrowing rail/creep space and by dripping water over her neck to cool her down in this location. Often, she will favour nursing at a location where she feels comfortable. When it gets too warm in one location, she will move to another.

  • Provide heating in the creep space for piglets. Piglets seem to avoid bright lights so a bright heating lamp may not be suitable. We have tried incandescent lamps which are not suitable. We currently have infrared lamps which are still too bright. Perhaps a green coloured infrared lamp would be suitable. In a study, piglets are supposedly attracted by green colour. Use heating lamps only when temperatures are low (below 25°C) and only in the first few days to a week of farrowing. We notice that when temperatures go down to 22°C, the piglets will use the heated creep space even with the bright infrared lamp.
  • Entice piglets to use the creep space. Piglets prefer to sleep in random places and they won’t even start sleeping in the creep space until they are 7 days old. We would really prefer if they used the creep space from Day 1 and avoid lying next to the mother. To get this to happen, we will need to motivate the sow to build her nest next to the creep space. In the video below, Sow Number 3 built her nest about 5 feet behind the creep space, in the corner of the pen. She has always considered this space a safe space for farrowing. We tried to entice piglets to the creep space by putting materials from the nest into the creep space. This did not work very well at all. We tried to entice the piglets by putting soil and grass in the creep space which seemed to have better results because piglets love exploring and eating soil.

  • Reduce heat stress. Sow housing should be well ventilated and protected from long periods of sunlight. We have switched from dry to wet feeding to see how that may reduce heat stress. We also plan to install an electric fan in the farrowing pen, which may be directed to a cool space near the farrowing rail/creep space to entice the sow to nurse her piglets in that location. ‘Impact of Smallholder Management Strategies on Sow and Piglet Condition’ is an interesting doctoral thesis that shows the importance of some low-investment strategies for improving sow and piglet health and welfare in a tropical setting.
  • Try to schedule farrowing in cooler months. In lowland locations in the Philippines, this would be in temperatures of 24-29°C. This is fine for sows and not overly cold for piglets. Sows have greater difficulty during the hot summer months and crushing rates are highest during these months.
  • Establish a positive relationship with the sow, so the sow will not be stressed or threatened when she sees you. Avoid noise, sudden movements, distress. Talk gently, don’t shout. Never hit or hurt a sow.

  • Treat MMA (mastatis, metritis, agalactia) ASAP. Check for mastitis which may be a reason why a sow would not nurse her piglets and easily get hurt by suckling. If mastitis is not present or cannot be treated within a few hours, grind or clip piglets’ teeth if necessary, for example, when the sow growls and refuses to nurse her piglets. The procedure must be done by an experienced animal technician. It must be done quickly and expertly. It must be done with no or very little piglet squealing. Collect the piglets and clip/grind their teeth away from the sow. Or you can let the sow out of the farrowing pen and process the piglets while she is away. In a loose-farrowing system, no other mutilation should be done – no tail cutting, ear notching or castration.

  • Rest and relaxation for sow, exercise for piglets. Give the sow some control over the nursing schedule so she doesn’t get irritated by piglets squealing for milk. We try to do this by letting the piglets out of the farrowing pen through an escape hatch. The piglets spend time playing and rooting in the garden outside the pen while the sow rests undisturbed. When she wants to nurse her piglets she calls them. Although this doesn’t happen most of the time, it does help to relax and calm a sow when she can rest away from her piglets. In the above video, the piglets go out into the garden while their mother relaxes in the farrowing pen.In the video below, Sow Number 3 plays in her pen while her piglets are out in the garden. Number 3 is 3 years and 4 months old and yet she likes to play. She plays like this even when the piglets are in the pen, scaring the piglets, but she tries her best not to trample on the piglets.

  • Understand the personality of your sow. All sows are different. Don’t blame a sow for crushing incidents. Instead, try and understand why crushing happens.

  • If you witness a crushing incident: Wait for a few seconds to allow the sow to hear the squeal of her piglet and get up.  This is an important process that will train the sow to heed the squeals of her piglets. This also trains the piglets to avoid the sow when she is about to lie down, thus sow and piglets learn to coordinate their movements. If the sow doesn’t get up in 10-20 seconds, you may approach her gently and entice her to get up. You can call her or ask her to have some food or water, forage etc. When the sow gets up, the piglet can escape. If the piglet doesn’t move, it may be suffocating. You can revive a piglet that isn’t breathing by holding it upside down and shaking it in a downward direction and giving it several slaps on the back. Put a finger in the piglet’s mouth to clear the airway and induce breathing. Massage its chest to get it to breath. Some studies have shown that piglets crushed for several minutes can still be revived. We have revived a couple of piglets in this manner. The video below shows two piglets that survived crushing. One piglet has a limp but this became better after several days.

Breeding for Good Maternal Instincts and Understanding The Sow

Domestic sows for commercial production have been selectively bred to be prolific. While wild and native sows have a litter of only 3-6 piglets, their domestic counterparts give birth to 12-14 per litter.

In the meantime, to cope with increasing litter sizes, studies are being made on selective breeding for good maternal instincts and other mitigation strategies to address health and welfare issues.

If we had a choice, we would prefer that the sow produced a smaller litter of piglets with high birth weight and lower or no crushing incidents. This would probably be the sow’s choice too. We have also wondered if a sow deliberately crushed her piglets when she had too many. An interesting paper on this topic is ‘Maternal behaviour in pigs and its relation to piglet performance and survival’. Some of the interesting theories mentioned in the paper are the following:

Theory of Maternal Investment

Some sows are more responsive to the piglets’ scream than others (Hudson et al. 1991). The question is, what differs those sows from the others? Is there any explanation for this variation? The main opinion about crushing seems to be that sows crush piglets by mistake, and that some sows are more caring than others. Andersen et al. (2005) questioned this a bit by presenting their theory about reducing maternal investment. The point with reducing maternal investment is to be able to have more offspring in the future (Manning & Dawkins, 1998). Most of the fatal crushing occurred the two first days after parturition and this supports Andersen et al. (2005) theory because then the maternal investment is still on a low level. The sows that crushed piglets had generally larger litters and this also support this theory because a large litter means a larger investment (Andersen et al. 2005). If Andersen et al. (2005) theory is correct; how can killing piglets increase the sow’s fitness? Infanticide is present in various species and the causation seems to be species dependent. Female rabbits sometimes kill their young and eat them. Boyd (1985) suggest that this may be one way for the rabbits to adjust the balance of stored nutrients and litter size in relation to the capacity to obtain nutrients from the environment. But this seems not to be the case for pigs because Andersen et al. (2005) do not mention anything about sows eating their crushed piglets.

Trivers-Willard Hypothesis

There is also a theory on sex-biased parental investment called the Trivers-Willard hypothesis. It predicts that parents will bias their sex ratio toward sons when in good condition and toward daughters when in poor condition. That daughters are more benefiting than sons during poor conditions are explained by the notion that males in poor body condition, which can be a result of poor environment, seldom gets a chance to mate (Trivers & Willard, 1979). This theory is sometimes used to explain infanticide. In a study made on wild boars they counted and sex determined fetuses in the uterine of wild boar females killed by hunting and they saw some tendency to biased litters. Small litters contained more males and large litters more females (Servanty et al., 2007). So it seems that there is a relationship between sex-ratio and litter size already early in pregnancy. If sex-ratio can be shifted already before birth it would probably be more inexpensive than provide them with nutrients during the whole pregnancy, give birth to them and then crush them. The piglets’ sex is not noted in Andersen et al. (2005) study so it is unclear if they crushed one sex more than the other.

Nest Building Theory

In a restricted environment, sows are more active during farrowing than sows kept in semi-natural environment (Thodberg et al., 2002). It could be a result of the restricted environment. A restricted sow may become stressed prior to farrowing, and continue to be so during farrowing, because she cannot perform her natural behaviour and build a suitable nest. The findings by Thodberg et al. (1999), that sows were more active prior to farrowing and less active during farrowing when given access to nest material, supports this theory. In a semi-natural environment the sow can express her natural behaviour to a much larger extent so that she might be more satisfied compared with the sows kept indoors. She have unlimited access to different kinds of nesting material so she can build a satisfying nest. If the sow doesn’t get the ability to build a nest she is satisfied with, she might not stop nesting. This is because the later phase of the nesting behaviour is triggered by feedback and external stimuli (Jensen, 1993).

The Isolation Hypothesis

Sows indoors are often kept very close to other sows. Sows living under natural conditions leave the group when they are about to farrow (Jensen, 1989) and it is likely that this behaviour has been evolutionary favoured; that it has increased the sow’s fitness in some way.  The hypothesis of why the sow leaves the group is that the isolation is necessary for the piglets and the sow to learn to recognize each other and to avoid cross suckling (Jensen, 1986). One thing that may have a negative impact on the piglets’ survival is that sows kept close to each other can hear vocalizations from the other sows’ piglets. This may habituate her to the sound and way make her less attentive and responsive to the sounds that really mean something: the sounds from her own piglets. It is important that the sow react to distress calls from the piglets, otherwise she might crush them. Crushings often have underlying causes and they are interlinked. The piglet can be weakened for some reason or even already dead when the sow lies down on it. So, the sow cannot be blamed alone but her behaviour can in some cases affect the outcome. If she rises up to a sitting or standing position she may be able to save the piglet because many piglets die of suffocation (Weary et al. 1996). Because there is a genetic correlation between response to piglet distress calls and piglet mortality (Grandinson et al., 2003) it would most likely be possible to affect this trait by genetic selection.

Proactive/Reactive Theory

Thodberg et al. (2002) studied maternal behaviour in sows and used animals that previously, at younger age, had been tested for behavioural reactivity. The authors suggest that the extreme sows in this test had similarities to proactive and reactive types described for rodents. These two types of coping styles differ both behaviourally and endocrinologically. In mice, proactive individuals show more active avoidance behaviour, nest-building, routine formation and less flexibility than reactive individuals. Proactive individuals get high levels of catecholamines in the blood when they are stressed, but the cortisol levels stays low. (Catecholamines cause general physiological changes that prepare the body for physical activity (fight-or-flight response); while Cortisol is one of the most widely used biomarkers to detect stress in pigs). For reactive, is it the other way around, they get high levels of cortisol and low levels of catecholamines (Koolhaas et al., 1999). Proactive and reactive coping styles have also been studied in pigs. A study by Janczak et al. (2003) could not confirm that there are different coping styles in pigs whereas Ruis et al. (2000) got results supporting that there is. Thodberg et al. (2002) found that individuals showing proactive behaviour in the behavioural reactivity tests were behaving with less flexibility when it came to nursing. The reactive individuals appeared to be more in control of the nursing behaviour. However, the authors also recorded other traits in this study that did not fit the proactive/reactive theory (Thodberg et al., 2002).

Continuing Research

And finally, here is a potential breakthrough in reducing piglet crushing incidents. 😉 In the video below, Sow Number 3 is nursing her piglets in a standing position. Sow Auntie Brownie does this as well. The piglets are 18 days old in this video. If only the sows would do this from Day 1. However, because she was feeling so relaxed by the suckling, Sow Number 3 fell over and nearly crushed her piglets! She got up quickly and continued nursing them, then proceeded to eat. 🙂

And the work continues….

If you have experience with sows and the reduction of crushing incidents in loose-farrowing or pasture systems, we would love to hear from you. Please share your experiences with us in a comment to this post. Thank you and happy farming!

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