After birth, piglets leave the warm environment of the mother’s body. Ensuring that they all survive and thrive so they can grow and develop healthily is an important part of improving a pig farm’s economic performance. This article mainly introduces care measures for newborn piglets, including 11 key points.
I. Ensure early intake of colostrum
Piglets have no innate immunity at birth, while colostrum contains immunoglobulins that directly protect newborn piglets through the dangerous first three days. Therefore, piglets should receive colostrum as soon as possible after birth.
During farrowing, the sow’s teats are full and remain ready to release milk throughout. After farrowing, the sow lies on her side so the piglets can suckle. The newborn piglets first remain quiet for a while, then begin searching for teats, sniffing and tasting anything protruding around the sow’s underside until they find a teat and begin to suckle.
The first piglet born takes the longest to get the milk it needs, and the time decreases with each subsequent piglet. This is because piglets born after the second imitate the behavior of the first piglet.
Both the sow and the piglets can initiate suckling behavior. This is usually done through rhythmic grunting. Suckling occurs approximately every 30–40 min after farrowing. The interval between suckling bouts is slightly longer during the day than at night, and litters with fewer piglets suckle more frequently than larger litters. As the piglets grow older, both the number of suckling bouts and the duration of each bout gradually decrease.
The piglets' suckling process is divided into 4 stages: first, the piglets gather around the teats, each taking up a certain position, and rub the udder with the tip of the nose; during suckling, the piglets' ears are laid back, their tails are tightly curled, and their front legs are stretched forward. At this point, the sow's grunting reaches a peak; finally, when milk letdown ends, the piglets rub the udder again. As the amount of milk produced gradually decreases, suckling behavior naturally decreases as well, and eventually stops completely. Sows that become ill should be treated promptlyTreatment, to prevent pain from affecting milk production.
二、Teeth clipping and tail docking
To reduce damage to the sow’s teats and lessen injuries to littermates when piglets fight, piglets’ teeth should be clipped after birth. Take care not to clip the teeth too short, to avoid damaging the gums and tongue and allowing pathogens to enter the piglet’s body. Disinfect all tools before clipping piglets’ teeth to prevent cross-contamination by bacteria. Teeth should not be clipped on poorly developed piglets, as this helps them compete for teats and survive.
Tail docking is a routine procedure that can prevent tail biting during the weaning, growing, and finishing stages. The following are some procedures for tail docking:
(1) Shortly after birth, use a tail docker to cut off the tail. Piglets recover quickly because the wound is small and does not bleed much.
(2) Avoid docking too short. The end of the vulva and the middle of the boar’s scrotum can be used as reference points for the docking length.
(3) Disinfect the tail docking tool after docking the tails of piglets and between litters.
(4) To prevent cross-contamination by bacteria, do not use the same tail docking tool for both teeth clipping and tail docking.
(5) Thoroughly clean the tail docking tool after use.
(6) Do not dock the tails of weak piglets, to avoid increasing stress and causing death.
Three. Prevent suffocation and properly sever the umbilical cord
After piglets are born, mucus and amniotic fluid should be removed from the mouth and respiratory tract as much as possible. If there is a lot of mucus, lift the hind legs so that the head points downward, gently pat the chest wall, and then wipe the mucus from the mouth or nasal cavity with gauze. If suffocation has occurred, insert a rubber tube into the trachea and gently blow air through it once every few seconds to help the piglet breathe. After drying the piglet, sever the umbilical cord. Improper severing can cause excessive bleeding in newborn piglets, affecting their vitality and subsequent growth. To prevent this, at a point 5~6cm from the base of the umbilical cord, use your fingers to push the blood upward, pinch the point where the cord is to be severed, then cut it with scissors and apply iodine tincture. After severing the cord, prevent the piglets from licking one another to avoid infection and inflammation.
Four. Assign teats
The sow’s entire nursing process lasts 3~5min, but the actual milk letdown during each nursing session lasts only 20～30s. If piglets do not have fixed nursing positions, stronger piglets will inevitably bully weaker ones, causing smaller piglets to miss the opportunity to nurse and either starve to death or become runts. Therefore, within 2d after birth, teats should be assigned manually to ensure the normal growth and development of the entire litter.
Pigs are precocial animals, which means that piglets are relatively mature at birth. Piglets are born with their eyes open and are able to move, and they can suckle soon after birth. Behavioral studies show that piglets encounter many difficulties before finding a teat, including the sow’s hind legs, the farrowing crate walls, and littermates. Without assistance, piglets take nearly 30 min from birth to their first successful suckling. After that, piglets engage in frequent fighting as they establish a teat order. The first-born piglet selects a teat, and later-born piglets often challenge their littermates for it. Teat fighting can affect piglet mortality, especially when the fighting is fierce and prolonged.
Teat fighting is most intense during the first 4~6 h after birth. After teat order is established during the following 2~3 d, piglets also establish a sleeping and suckling routine. After farrowing, the sow nurses approximately every 30~40 min, with each nursing bout lasting 20~30 s. When the sow calls (making rhythmic sounds), piglets that do not approach the udder will miss the opportunity to suckle. Weak piglets and those with splayed hind legs often miss suckling. Strong piglets aged 7 days or older may take the opportunity to suckle from two teats.
It is essential to identify how many piglets each sow can rear (the sow’s rearing capacity). For example, a sow with 12 evenly spaced teats but with the lower row of teats not exposed cannot feed 12 piglets. The situation becomes worse when the farrowing-pen rails block access to the upper row of teats. After farrowing, adjust the farrowing-pen rails regularly to ensure that piglets can easily access the sow’s upper row of teats.
It is very important to observe all newborn piglets and identify those that do not suckle regularly and those that are weak. Small, weak piglets have limited energy reserves and therefore need more energy. Many farrowing and lactation management systems focus only on the best and strongest piglets, while 15% of the weak piglets in each litter do not receive adequate care.
Some producers believe that the rear teats are smaller and that smaller piglets can nurse more easily, so they usually place the smallest piglets at the rear. Since the first three pairs of teats produce more milk and the rear teats produce less, this practice is extremely disadvantageous to slow-growing piglets. It can result in uneven growth across the litter, a low litter weight at weaning, and an extended time for pigs to reach their normal market weight.
Five. Keep warm, prevent chilling, and reduce stress
The critical temperature for newborn piglets is 35°C. In a low-temperature environment, they rapidly lose body heat, and their body temperature may sometimes drop by 4~6°C. In a warm pig house, normal body temperature can be restored in 2~4h. Ambient temperature is strongly negatively correlated with the restoration of body temperature. Therefore, the farrowing room should be kept as warm as possible during farrowing. Infrared heat lamps rated at 250W, creep areas or creep boxes, heated beds, heating, electric heating plates, and other equipment can be installed in the farrowing room to provide warmth and reduce stress caused by cold.
Temperature conditions in the farrowing room are somewhat unusual: the optimum temperature for sows (for feed intake and behavior) is 20°C, while that for newborn piglets is 34°C. To accommodate newborn piglets, heating equipment and a creep-feeding area should be placed in the farrowing unit.
Six: Prevent crushing and trampling to reduce deaths among small piglets
Newborn piglets react slowly and move awkwardly. A moment’s carelessness could result in the sow trampling or crushing them to death.
Pigs have a strong herd instinct and communicate by sound.
Sows are very careful to protect their piglets. When walking or lying down, they repeatedly use their snouts to move the piglets out of the place where they intend to lie, to avoid crushing them. If a sow lies on a piglet and hears it squeal, she immediately gets up and repeats this protective action until she is no longer lying on the piglet. When a sow with piglets is approached by an outsider, especially when a stranger or caretaker handles a piglet, she may open and close her jaws to threaten the intruder, or even attack. Some sows also resist stubbornly while sitting back on their haunches, so caution is needed.
Piglets are highly social animals. When isolated, they may squeal, and piglets separated from the group are easily crushed, chilled, or injured by other pigs. Over time, the sow’s maternal instinct naturally weakens as more time passes after farrowing, while piglets tend to become more independent as they grow older. As weaning approaches, the bond between the sow and her piglets gradually loosens.
VII. Iron Injection
At birth, a piglet’s total iron reserves are approximately 50 mg. It requires about 7 mg for daily growth. Before it begins eating feed at 3 weeks of age, it needs a total of 200 mg. However, sow’s milk contains very little iron (each 100 g of milk contains 0.2 mg of iron), and a piglet can obtain only about 1 mg of iron per day from its mother’s milk. Therefore, sow’s milk is far from sufficient to meet a piglet’s iron requirements. A piglet’s iron reserves are depleted as early as 3~4 days of age. If not replenished, it will develop iron-deficiency anemia. Iron-deficient piglets have weakened disease resistance and are more susceptible to infection. Iron should be administered when piglets are 2 days old; in special cases, a second injection may be given after 7 days.
VIII. Castration
German veterinary experts recommend castrating piglets at 3 days of age. They believe that delaying castration puts piglets at risk of infection with porcine circovirus disease and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, whereas piglets castrated early can receive antibody protection through colostrum. Young animals have a high pain threshold (they show almost no signs of pain) and experience less stress during castration. When castration is performed early, the surgical wound is small, less likely to become infected, and heals quickly. To keep the wound clean and hygienic, use a sulfonamide spray ortreata powder for treating wounds to care for the wound. A comparison of piglets castrated at 3 days of age with those castrated later, at 13 or 23 days of age, showed that at 30 days of age, the early-castrated piglets weighed 450 g more than piglets castrated at 23 days of age, and their wounds had healed completely within 10 days after surgery (the latter group required 16 days).
Nine. Selenium supplementation
Selenium and vitamin E have similar antioxidant effects. Selenium is related to the absorption and utilization of vitamin E, so selenium deficiency symptoms are similar to those of vitamin E deficiency. Piglets may become ill suddenly. Affected piglets are often in above-average nutritional condition or grow rapidly. Their body temperature is normal or low, their cries are hoarse, and they stagger when walking, eventually becoming paralyzed in the hind legs. Some affected piglets pass loose gray-green or gray-yellow feces. The skin and visible mucous membranes are pale, and the eyelids are swollen. Necropsy may reveal liver necrosis, swelling, congestion, or hemorrhage of the mesenteric lymph nodes, and muscle atrophy, among other lesions. Affected piglets have reduced appetite and slow weight gain; severe cases may die suddenly. Piglets’ daily selenium requirement varies with body weight and is approximately 0.08–0.23 mg. Selenium deficiency occurs readily only in selenium-deficient areas. Selenium should be supplemented as early as possible in deficient piglets. Generally, 0.1% sodium selenite and vitamin E injection is administered intramuscularly 3–5 days after birth. The daily injection volume per piglet is 0.5 ml at 3 days of age; another 1 injection is given at weaning, at a dose of Iml.
Ten. Water supplementation
Water is the most important nutrient required by pigs. Because piglets grow rapidly and have a high metabolic rate, and sow’s milk has a high fat content, piglets feel thirsty immediately after feeding. If water is not provided promptly, they may drink dirty water or urine, which can easily cause diarrhea. Therefore, provide clean drinking water in a water trough in the creep area starting when piglets are 3–5 days old. Change the water regularly to keep it fresh, and add a little sweetener, but do not use greasy water. In a trial, piglets 3–20 days old were given water containing 0.8% hydrochloric acid (they were given plain water after 20 days of age). The weaning weight at 60 days of age increased by 13%. Supplementing the drinking water with hydrochloric acid helps address insufficient gastric juice secretion and activates pepsin.
Eleven. Feed supplementation
The sow’s lactation reaches its peak at 3 weeks after farrowing, after which milk production gradually declines. This is also a period of vigorous growth for piglets, whose nutritional requirements are high. To meet their growth and development needs, feed must be provided to make up for the shortfall in the supply of sow’s milk. At the same time, to prepare for early weaning, piglets must learn to eat before the sow’s lactation peak and before weaning. This helps exercise their gums, promote gastrointestinal development, and prevent diarrhea. Supplementary feed can generally be introduced at 5 to 7 days of age to train piglets to start eating. Common methods include scattering some Zhengda Milk Replacer on the floor beside the wall of the creep-feeding area when piglets begin to move around freely at 5 to 7 days of age, so they can nibble at it freely or nibble alongside the sow and gradually learn to eat. Supplementary feeding for suckling piglets should be given in small amounts and replenished frequently to avoid increasing waste and adjust the amount provided. When supplementing the feed of suckling piglets, take care to offer small amounts frequently to avoid wasting feed. Generally, piglets can eat by 20 days of age, and their feed intake increases sharply after 30 days of age.
I. Ensure early intake of colostrum
Piglets have no innate immunity at birth, while colostrum contains immunoglobulins that directly protect newborn piglets through the dangerous first three days. Therefore, piglets should receive colostrum as soon as possible after birth.
During farrowing, the sow’s teats are full and remain ready to release milk throughout. After farrowing, the sow lies on her side so the piglets can suckle. The newborn piglets first remain quiet for a while, then begin searching for teats, sniffing and tasting anything protruding around the sow’s underside until they find a teat and begin to suckle.
The first piglet born takes the longest to get the milk it needs, and the time decreases with each subsequent piglet. This is because piglets born after the second imitate the behavior of the first piglet.
Both the sow and the piglets can initiate suckling behavior. This is usually done through rhythmic grunting. Suckling occurs approximately every 30–40 min after farrowing. The interval between suckling bouts is slightly longer during the day than at night, and litters with fewer piglets suckle more frequently than larger litters. As the piglets grow older, both the number of suckling bouts and the duration of each bout gradually decrease.
The piglets' suckling process is divided into 4 stages: first, the piglets gather around the teats, each taking up a certain position, and rub the udder with the tip of the nose; during suckling, the piglets' ears are laid back, their tails are tightly curled, and their front legs are stretched forward. At this point, the sow's grunting reaches a peak; finally, when milk letdown ends, the piglets rub the udder again. As the amount of milk produced gradually decreases, suckling behavior naturally decreases as well, and eventually stops completely. Sows that become ill should be treated promptlyTreatment, to prevent pain from affecting milk production.
二、Teeth clipping and tail docking
To reduce damage to the sow’s teats and lessen injuries to littermates when piglets fight, piglets’ teeth should be clipped after birth. Take care not to clip the teeth too short, to avoid damaging the gums and tongue and allowing pathogens to enter the piglet’s body. Disinfect all tools before clipping piglets’ teeth to prevent cross-contamination by bacteria. Teeth should not be clipped on poorly developed piglets, as this helps them compete for teats and survive.
Tail docking is a routine procedure that can prevent tail biting during the weaning, growing, and finishing stages. The following are some procedures for tail docking:
(1) Shortly after birth, use a tail docker to cut off the tail. Piglets recover quickly because the wound is small and does not bleed much.
(2) Avoid docking too short. The end of the vulva and the middle of the boar’s scrotum can be used as reference points for the docking length.
(3) Disinfect the tail docking tool after docking the tails of piglets and between litters.
(4) To prevent cross-contamination by bacteria, do not use the same tail docking tool for both teeth clipping and tail docking.
(5) Thoroughly clean the tail docking tool after use.
(6) Do not dock the tails of weak piglets, to avoid increasing stress and causing death.
Three. Prevent suffocation and properly sever the umbilical cord
After piglets are born, mucus and amniotic fluid should be removed from the mouth and respiratory tract as much as possible. If there is a lot of mucus, lift the hind legs so that the head points downward, gently pat the chest wall, and then wipe the mucus from the mouth or nasal cavity with gauze. If suffocation has occurred, insert a rubber tube into the trachea and gently blow air through it once every few seconds to help the piglet breathe. After drying the piglet, sever the umbilical cord. Improper severing can cause excessive bleeding in newborn piglets, affecting their vitality and subsequent growth. To prevent this, at a point 5~6cm from the base of the umbilical cord, use your fingers to push the blood upward, pinch the point where the cord is to be severed, then cut it with scissors and apply iodine tincture. After severing the cord, prevent the piglets from licking one another to avoid infection and inflammation.
Four. Assign teats
The sow’s entire nursing process lasts 3~5min, but the actual milk letdown during each nursing session lasts only 20～30s. If piglets do not have fixed nursing positions, stronger piglets will inevitably bully weaker ones, causing smaller piglets to miss the opportunity to nurse and either starve to death or become runts. Therefore, within 2d after birth, teats should be assigned manually to ensure the normal growth and development of the entire litter.
Pigs are precocial animals, which means that piglets are relatively mature at birth. Piglets are born with their eyes open and are able to move, and they can suckle soon after birth. Behavioral studies show that piglets encounter many difficulties before finding a teat, including the sow’s hind legs, the farrowing crate walls, and littermates. Without assistance, piglets take nearly 30 min from birth to their first successful suckling. After that, piglets engage in frequent fighting as they establish a teat order. The first-born piglet selects a teat, and later-born piglets often challenge their littermates for it. Teat fighting can affect piglet mortality, especially when the fighting is fierce and prolonged.
Teat fighting is most intense during the first 4~6 h after birth. After teat order is established during the following 2~3 d, piglets also establish a sleeping and suckling routine. After farrowing, the sow nurses approximately every 30~40 min, with each nursing bout lasting 20~30 s. When the sow calls (making rhythmic sounds), piglets that do not approach the udder will miss the opportunity to suckle. Weak piglets and those with splayed hind legs often miss suckling. Strong piglets aged 7 days or older may take the opportunity to suckle from two teats.
It is essential to identify how many piglets each sow can rear (the sow’s rearing capacity). For example, a sow with 12 evenly spaced teats but with the lower row of teats not exposed cannot feed 12 piglets. The situation becomes worse when the farrowing-pen rails block access to the upper row of teats. After farrowing, adjust the farrowing-pen rails regularly to ensure that piglets can easily access the sow’s upper row of teats.
It is very important to observe all newborn piglets and identify those that do not suckle regularly and those that are weak. Small, weak piglets have limited energy reserves and therefore need more energy. Many farrowing and lactation management systems focus only on the best and strongest piglets, while 15% of the weak piglets in each litter do not receive adequate care.
Some producers believe that the rear teats are smaller and that smaller piglets can nurse more easily, so they usually place the smallest piglets at the rear. Since the first three pairs of teats produce more milk and the rear teats produce less, this practice is extremely disadvantageous to slow-growing piglets. It can result in uneven growth across the litter, a low litter weight at weaning, and an extended time for pigs to reach their normal market weight.
Five. Keep warm, prevent chilling, and reduce stress
The critical temperature for newborn piglets is 35°C. In a low-temperature environment, they rapidly lose body heat, and their body temperature may sometimes drop by 4~6°C. In a warm pig house, normal body temperature can be restored in 2~4h. Ambient temperature is strongly negatively correlated with the restoration of body temperature. Therefore, the farrowing room should be kept as warm as possible during farrowing. Infrared heat lamps rated at 250W, creep areas or creep boxes, heated beds, heating, electric heating plates, and other equipment can be installed in the farrowing room to provide warmth and reduce stress caused by cold.
Temperature conditions in the farrowing room are somewhat unusual: the optimum temperature for sows (for feed intake and behavior) is 20°C, while that for newborn piglets is 34°C. To accommodate newborn piglets, heating equipment and a creep-feeding area should be placed in the farrowing unit.
Six: Prevent crushing and trampling to reduce deaths among small piglets
Newborn piglets react slowly and move awkwardly. A moment’s carelessness could result in the sow trampling or crushing them to death.
Pigs have a strong herd instinct and communicate by sound.
Sows are very careful to protect their piglets. When walking or lying down, they repeatedly use their snouts to move the piglets out of the place where they intend to lie, to avoid crushing them. If a sow lies on a piglet and hears it squeal, she immediately gets up and repeats this protective action until she is no longer lying on the piglet. When a sow with piglets is approached by an outsider, especially when a stranger or caretaker handles a piglet, she may open and close her jaws to threaten the intruder, or even attack. Some sows also resist stubbornly while sitting back on their haunches, so caution is needed.
Piglets are highly social animals. When isolated, they may squeal, and piglets separated from the group are easily crushed, chilled, or injured by other pigs. Over time, the sow’s maternal instinct naturally weakens as more time passes after farrowing, while piglets tend to become more independent as they grow older. As weaning approaches, the bond between the sow and her piglets gradually loosens.
VII. Iron Injection
At birth, a piglet’s total iron reserves are approximately 50 mg. It requires about 7 mg for daily growth. Before it begins eating feed at 3 weeks of age, it needs a total of 200 mg. However, sow’s milk contains very little iron (each 100 g of milk contains 0.2 mg of iron), and a piglet can obtain only about 1 mg of iron per day from its mother’s milk. Therefore, sow’s milk is far from sufficient to meet a piglet’s iron requirements. A piglet’s iron reserves are depleted as early as 3~4 days of age. If not replenished, it will develop iron-deficiency anemia. Iron-deficient piglets have weakened disease resistance and are more susceptible to infection. Iron should be administered when piglets are 2 days old; in special cases, a second injection may be given after 7 days.
VIII. Castration
German veterinary experts recommend castrating piglets at 3 days of age. They believe that delaying castration puts piglets at risk of infection with porcine circovirus disease and porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, whereas piglets castrated early can receive antibody protection through colostrum. Young animals have a high pain threshold (they show almost no signs of pain) and experience less stress during castration. When castration is performed early, the surgical wound is small, less likely to become infected, and heals quickly. To keep the wound clean and hygienic, use a sulfonamide spray ortreata powder for treating wounds to care for the wound. A comparison of piglets castrated at 3 days of age with those castrated later, at 13 or 23 days of age, showed that at 30 days of age, the early-castrated piglets weighed 450 g more than piglets castrated at 23 days of age, and their wounds had healed completely within 10 days after surgery (the latter group required 16 days).
Nine. Selenium supplementation
Selenium and vitamin E have similar antioxidant effects. Selenium is related to the absorption and utilization of vitamin E, so selenium deficiency symptoms are similar to those of vitamin E deficiency. Piglets may become ill suddenly. Affected piglets are often in above-average nutritional condition or grow rapidly. Their body temperature is normal or low, their cries are hoarse, and they stagger when walking, eventually becoming paralyzed in the hind legs. Some affected piglets pass loose gray-green or gray-yellow feces. The skin and visible mucous membranes are pale, and the eyelids are swollen. Necropsy may reveal liver necrosis, swelling, congestion, or hemorrhage of the mesenteric lymph nodes, and muscle atrophy, among other lesions. Affected piglets have reduced appetite and slow weight gain; severe cases may die suddenly. Piglets’ daily selenium requirement varies with body weight and is approximately 0.08–0.23 mg. Selenium deficiency occurs readily only in selenium-deficient areas. Selenium should be supplemented as early as possible in deficient piglets. Generally, 0.1% sodium selenite and vitamin E injection is administered intramuscularly 3–5 days after birth. The daily injection volume per piglet is 0.5 ml at 3 days of age; another 1 injection is given at weaning, at a dose of Iml.
Ten. Water supplementation
Water is the most important nutrient required by pigs. Because piglets grow rapidly and have a high metabolic rate, and sow’s milk has a high fat content, piglets feel thirsty immediately after feeding. If water is not provided promptly, they may drink dirty water or urine, which can easily cause diarrhea. Therefore, provide clean drinking water in a water trough in the creep area starting when piglets are 3–5 days old. Change the water regularly to keep it fresh, and add a little sweetener, but do not use greasy water. In a trial, piglets 3–20 days old were given water containing 0.8% hydrochloric acid (they were given plain water after 20 days of age). The weaning weight at 60 days of age increased by 13%. Supplementing the drinking water with hydrochloric acid helps address insufficient gastric juice secretion and activates pepsin.
Eleven. Feed supplementation
The sow’s lactation reaches its peak at 3 weeks after farrowing, after which milk production gradually declines. This is also a period of vigorous growth for piglets, whose nutritional requirements are high. To meet their growth and development needs, feed must be provided to make up for the shortfall in the supply of sow’s milk. At the same time, to prepare for early weaning, piglets must learn to eat before the sow’s lactation peak and before weaning. This helps exercise their gums, promote gastrointestinal development, and prevent diarrhea. Supplementary feed can generally be introduced at 5 to 7 days of age to train piglets to start eating. Common methods include scattering some Zhengda Milk Replacer on the floor beside the wall of the creep-feeding area when piglets begin to move around freely at 5 to 7 days of age, so they can nibble at it freely or nibble alongside the sow and gradually learn to eat. Supplementary feeding for suckling piglets should be given in small amounts and replenished frequently to avoid increasing waste and adjust the amount provided. When supplementing the feed of suckling piglets, take care to offer small amounts frequently to avoid wasting feed. Generally, piglets can eat by 20 days of age, and their feed intake increases sharply after 30 days of age.