On Thursday, Friday, and Saturday we treated pigs #27, #29, #31, #32, #33, #34, #36, and #44 with fenbendazole. The vet had recommended a three day course of treatment to break the cycle of the worms. We also treated #34 and #36 with Enroflox, 1.5cc via subQ and 2.5cc of Liquimyacin, via IM. Both were coughing again and needed the boost to help break this pneumonia cycle we seem to be in.
Dewormer that we are using on our pigs.
We’ll give the deworming a few days to see how the do, then do a fecal check again to see if we are making progress. Obviously if body condition changes one way or the other considerably, that will tell us as well.
Fortunately we had some “test pigs” to carry out on the maiden voyage.
After pulling out the trailer, Miguel and I quickly cleaned up the shop. I was starting to get apoplectic about how cramped and dirty everything was getting. I feel much better now.
The next project is already inside. We are taking apart an old commercial air compressor to utilize the tank as a vacuum tank for our milking machine. Right now it takes two people to milk and we have issues with moisture getting into the pump. Both are bad. Once we get this tank installed, we should have no more moisture issues and we should have enough reserve vacuum to milk 10 cows at once, not that we ever would. We are only set up with one milking stall. But it never hurts to be prepared, plus the air compressor was going to the scrap yard so the cost for the tank is zero.
Yesterday marked a big day for #33. His insides are no longer his outsides. I was due to make a medical device this weekend, most likely today, and then perform some home surgery probably this evening. I made sure to discuss this in front of the pig because despite assertions to the contrary, they know what you are talking about. The idea of having a plastic piece stuffed up your bum, and a castrating band placed around whatever bits are sticking out couldn’t have sounded too fun to the pig. I know it would have made my rear end pucker and that’s exactly the effect it had on said piggy. Suddenly that prolapse went right side in and the pig made sure to tell us just how happy she is. Of course, that suited me fine because I didn’t want to have to do any more to her anyway.
We finished the course of dewormers on her yesterday as well so another day of observation and #33 can go back into the big pen with everyone else. I’m not sure after all this, being fed by hand, sleeping under a heat lamp, curled up in a big pile of hay, that #33 is going to want to go back outside but I think some sunshine and being back with the pack will trump giving up the white glove treatment.
When I talked to Dr. Caesar from Rollins Animal Lab, she had a definite answer for what was wrong. I remind you that the vet had already looked at our pigs and had done a fecal exam to look for parasites with zero noted. We had already treated our pigs for pneumonia, and with one of the pigs we had dewormed it hoping to see a change in its condition as an indicator that maybe that is what was wrong. We’d noted no change.
So Dr. Caesar’s answer? Worms. Big time worms. Multiple kinds of big time worms. We don’t treat with chemicals unless there is a diagnosis, and we just couldn’t get one for some reason. Both the vet and I are stumped why we couldn’t but we have one now. That’s good news. The bad news is we now have to treat all the pigs in the barn, and all the pigs in two paddocks on each side of this affected paddock for worms.
Dewormer that we are using on our pigs.
Dr. Caesar recommended fenbendazole and Dr. Brady agreed so off to Tractor Supply I went to find the stuff. I’d never heard of it which makes me a bit of a doofus of an animal farmer but like I said we don’t use dewormers unless there is a reason. I thought we’d be injecting something else into the pigs with a needle but it turns out this stuff is a paste that comes in a squirt tube you stick in the pigs mouth. Since the pigs are happy to swallow just about anything and hygiene isn’t as critical since we aren’t giving shots it was actually pretty easy, at least for the ones in the barn. The ones outside will probably have to have a different treatment.
So it looks like the pigs I bought from the crazy old coot in Zebulon brought an infestation with them. We’ll be going with a scorched earth policy for the next few weeks to clean everything up and to break the life cycle of the worms. We are also looking hard at getting some breeding sows and a boar because every time we bring animals from off farm, we introduce some new problem. Miguel and I both think it will be worth just doing it ourselves. We’ll see.
Until we can get our own breeding going, we are going to have to deworm every new pig that hits the farm as a preventative so we don’t have a repeat of this. It will just be to break the cycle and give the pigs a clean start at their new life.
Yesterday we treated 31, 36, 34, 29, 27, 32, 33 with fenbendazole oral paste. We also ear tagged 43 and 44 and also treated them with fenbendazole. I’ll have to get a count of who has passed away because some of the ear tagged pigs are back in the main paddock. I’ll get that list and put it in a different post.
Also on 1/7/15 pig 29 received 1.5cc of Liquimyacin and 1.5cc of Enroflox
Pig 33, the one with the prolapse, had what looked like a blocked rectum. We cleaned everything off and I had to clear an internal blockage with manual interference, which is a fancy term for sticking my finger up a pigs butt. Once everything was flowing again, we treated with sugar. The prolapse is looking really good and is almost gone. It’s easy to push back inside, but it doesn’t stay inside. I have the instructions and the go ahead from the vet to perform a surgical procedure but first I have to make the device. That will be on this weekends to do list. I’ll post about it for sure.
On 1/6, we treated #33 with 3/4cc of penicillin and 1.5ccs of Enroflox and cleared a partial blockage from her prolapse.
Yesterday ended up being a pretty bad day on the farm. One of the little pigs we’ve been treating looked terrible when we milked at 5:30 but he was still hanging in there. Both the vet and I were clueless what was causing the problem but I had hopes that we’d learn something that day that would tell us what to do. We’d done a fecal check and found zero evidence of parasites and the pneumonia certainly didn’t seem to be the culprit. Later that morning, I went back to check on the pig and found her dead so that morning when I’d held her was right at the end. I talked to the vet and he quickly suggested I take the pig to Rollins Animal Lab on Blue Ridge Road and have a necropsy performed. I agreed readily as we’d already discussed this as a next step. I made arrangements to get by there later in the day as it was plenty cold to keep the pig until we could get there.
Cholo trailer, nearing completion.
First I had to work on the animal trailer we’ve been building because I’m trying to get it out of the shop so we can clean up and move onto the next desperately needed project. Our shop isn’t that large, and a trailer sitting in there pretty much takes up the whole work area. It’s been in there for over a month and it only needed the hydraulics working and the rear section made to be finished. After doing some testing and figuring out that I’d configured the hydraulics incorrectly, I had to get ANOTHER set of hoses made. While I was spending hours getting our latest set of hydraulic hoses made, Miguel texted me and said that cow #24 was dead! What?! This is one of the two heifers we bought when we bought Benjamin. She had had a still born calf last year but I attributed it to the fact that she was bred too young. Now suddenly she is dead. I got back to the farm, minus the final hose I needed due to a fitting we didn’t have to find our cow hanging and Miguel asking if we can save any meat from the cow.
Cow #24, dead from bloat.
I stood there for a good 10 minutes looking at this cow. She weighed about 900 pounds. She was pregnant from Benjamin which meant she would have thrown a pure Angus calf and probably 15 more over her life. Instead she’s hanging there dead and still warm. Miguel thought it was from bloat and a quick bit of home surgery confirmed he was right. From perfectly fine to dead in a couple of hours!
Miguel was game to dress her out and save the meat. However that would have kept us processing beef till about 10pm, getting her skinned, gutted, halved, and broken down into primals. Our freezers were full of existing meat so there wasn’t really any room to put another cow away anyway. We could have hung her in the reefer truck that we pick up and deliver our meat in, but I haven’t built the rack to hold a side yet (it’s on the to do list.) Also, I had to get the dead piglet to Rollins so they could find out what was causing the problems with our pigs. Finally, the trailer mentioned above, which couldn’t be moved due to a lack of the hose I didn’t get that morning, was in the way so the area where we would work was occupied because I hadn’t finished the trailer project. This was a comedy of errors, or just too many things happening at once. However the Lord doesn’t give you anything you can’t handle so stop, step through it, and execute.
The meat would be of questionable value. We couldn’t sell it. Miguel was game to try some and I debated on doing a quick butcher just to see what the quality was however even if it was ok I didn’t have the time to vacuum seal 425 lbs of meat so even if it was ok, I didn’t have the time to do it correctly. With a sigh I put the cow in the bucket of the backhoe and buried her. That’s about a $2000 cow on the hoof, and much much more than that over her life when you count her offspring. On top of her being a perfectly nice cow that I just feel terrible about.
The moral of the story with this cow is a saying I read in a cattleman’s magazine about culling. It said”Love your kids, forgive your enemies. Do neither for your cows.” This cow already had a problem. If I had culled her and sent her to the sale barn, I’d have cut my losses. Instead I’m spending money and time burying her. There isn’t enough margin in farming to make many mistakes. Loosing a prime cow if a pretty expensive mistake. I can’t say lesson learned, but lesson reinforced.
In my next post, I’ll tell about the pigs and what we’ve learned is the problem.
Today we took three bales of hay and placed them into the various pig paddocks. There is cold weather on the way and the pigs need a place to get warm. We haven’t been able to procure our first choice of material which is wood chips so we sacrificed three bales to the cause. The pigs were most appreciative however, diving into the new hay before we even had a chance to get out of the paddock. They climbed, dug, and romped in the hay till they had it they way they wanted. They were very cute burrowing into the hay and disappearing. The hay we used has been sitting on the ground and has began to decompose. Decomposing material generates its own heat and the pigs wasted no time in taking advantage.
We also placed hay in the barn along with fresh shavings so the pigs inside have it as good as the pigs outside.
We are still trying to find a source for wood chips. We can go many places and haul chips, however there are many contractors who are paying to dump chips or ground woody material who would love a place to dump for free. The issue is just getting to the right person. We can take many dump truck loads, quite possibly an endless supply which would be perfect for a tree service person who is grinding or chipping then having to pay a dump fee. If anyone knows of a source, please get them in contact with me. We’ll be helping out the contractor, and they will be helping out a farmer.
There is almost 400 pounds of beyond organic pork in the freezer waiting for you. I’ve updated the website with prices and cuts this week but rest assured pork chops, Italian sausage (SWMBO’s favorite) and sliced and smoked ham are all well stocked. We also have Boston butts and picnic roasts for you pulled pork afficianados. I can’t promise how long this will last as I know some of it is already sold but for now we have plenty.
Sliced ham of the Gods
Pricing is updated on the website as is what’s in stock and what’s not currently stocked. The not in stock items are ones that we didn’t get in the cuts this time but I wanted to leave them up there because we’ll get them next time we process a pig or two.
The freezer room in the barn. This is where we keep all of our meat.
For those of you who’ve already been out for a tour, you’ll be glad to know that we are finally getting our freezers organized so for those of you taking a tour, we won’t have to go to both the barn and the house to get your product. Everything is now conveniently housed together.
As a reminder we are open by appointment, so if you want some pork or some beef, just drop me a line at dan@ninjacowfarm.com or give me a call at 919-810-2530 to set up a time. Curious was looking pretty large last I saw her. Who knows, maybe you’ll get to see a new born calf when you stop by.
Yesterday evening Miguel and I treated the pig with the prolapse. There aren’t any pictures because:
The pig doesn’t want to pose for pictures.
I’m wearing gloves because, well if you don’t know I’m not going to explain it. Let’s just say I want to eat later with those same hands.
It takes all the hands I have just to hold the pig and do the work.
It’s really not that easy to see what is going on anyway.
We are still keeping #33 in the same stall. There is plenty of food and water and overall the pig is doing well. The prolapse is starting to retract somewhat and I noticed that there is pressure to pull it back in now. However the issue is that being outside of the body and exposed to the elements has caused the tissue to develop a sort of scab which now causes it to be hard and unable to retreat back inside the pig.
Last night we treated the pig with the normal routine of warm soapy water and sugar. However with the part of the prolapse that was closest to the pig I was able to start removing the scab to expose soft tissue underneath. The pig wasn’t exactly pleased but I was as gentle as I could be, letting the soapy water do most of the work in softening everything and slowly getting it to come off. It was actually quite a success as soft pink tissue, about one inch long, was exposed with no bleeding or signs of inflammation. Hopefully we’ll see that portion retract back inside today. If that’s the case, we’ll work on the remaining area over the next few days, keeping it moist and working the scab off. Hopefully we’ll have full success with this pig which would be really nice since we’ve never dealt with this issue before. I did finally go check my pig mentors website to see what he had to say about it, and as usual he’s quite a bit ahead of me. The interesting thing to me was the link he had at the bottom for the surgical procedure for treating prolapses. We have all the tools on hand to perform such a procedure. If sugar and time doesn’t heal this thing, surgery could be the next step. I just need to work on mattress sutures. Just when I think we are making progress on this issue, my girls informed me last night that they saw a pig that looked like it “had an apple stuck in its butt.”
Uh oh, off to check the pigs today. Sounds like another prolapse from one of the litter mates to #33. And to think, I considered not keeping the barn where we keep sick animals.
Nothing cute today, just some quick notes on what we’ve been doing.
#36 was feeling a bit poorly last night so we hit him again with Enroflox. 1.5cc Sub-q
The pig with the prolapse was treated with warm soapy water and another coating of sugar. She wasn’t too pleased with the treatment but it’s got to be done. The prolapse is getting hard after being exposed to air all this time. I’m beginning to wonder if it would go back in even if it could. Keeping it wet, clean, and coated in sugar seems to be a good approach for now.
Two pigs that are still in the barn are doing great, but loosing body condition. They are eating plenty and showing no signs of issues. My guess is they have gotten worms. We hit them both with Ivermectin injectable, 1ml for the bigger pig. 1/2 ml for the smaller pig. I’ll get their numbers and update that here. If they respond to the dewormer, we’ll need to deworm all the pigs in the barn because they have been in close proximity for long enough now.
On 12/26 we took another coughing pig into the barn. This time dark brown one. He was ear tagged #40 and given 1/2ml of penicillin. We didn’t use the enroflox on him because I wanted to see how he responded to the penicillin. Enroflox is about $200 per bottle, the same bottle of penicillin is about $30. If they both work, then penicillin is the better choice. Plus penicillin is the stuff we read about in history class, it’s the first anti-biotic and is basically just bread mold so I feel better using it.
#39 was also tagged on the 26th. He received 3/4 of on ml of penicillin
#38, the big pig we got from Chuck, also got tagged and injected on 12/20. He got 3.4 ml liquimycin and 2.5 cc enroflox.
Yesterday while we were treating a couple of pigs who were still coughing, Spork noticed that one of the pigs had “something hanging out of it’s butt.” Not a typical prognosis but something that got our attention. Miguel and I sorted through the piglets and found the one with the issue. Turns out she had a prolapsed rectum. As if pneumonia wasn’t enough.
We grabbed the piglet and took her to the barn. We had to break the stall into two separate stalls to keep this pig away from all the others. The danger of a prolapse is that the other pigs smell the blood and decide that whatever that thing is, it must be food. Obviously that’s bad for the pig with the prolapse.
Once we had everybody separated, we took the piglet into the milking parlor which doubles as our emergency room. We have water, a drain, a way to secure animals, and my medical bag.
The piglet held by a rope to keep her from running away.
Here you can see our setup. The piglet was tied in a loop behind the front legs and then tied to the steel stanchion. I could tie a Buick to that stanchion so the pig couldn’t budge it. Miguel took his normal position of calming the animal while I did all the doctory/vet type stuff (sorry for the fancy medical terms. 🙂
A little better view of the prolapse
It’s hard to see, but there is about a 2.5 inch prolapse hanging out of the rear end of this piglet. I’m seriously questioning the wisdom of buying pigs from other people vs. raising them ourselves. Between being sick and now this, maybe it would be easier to just raise our own. We are space limited so my preference has been to buy pigs vs. raise. Some pigs we buy are awesome and have no issues, some have nothing but issues. At least we didn’t have another Flash Gordon
Trying to treat a prolapsed rectum on the piglet
Let’s get this out of the way. Yes, I have my hands up a pigs bum. Folks, being a farmer isn’t pretty. There is poop, life, death, and everything in between. This is a new one, but nothing worse that I’ve seen before. The point here is we are treating this piglet with all the care we can and trying to help it have a good life. This is a genetic condition, one that isn’t the pigs fault or our conditions. All we can do is get the pig healthy and move forward, and not buy any more pigs from this breeder again.
More of treating the little piglet
The piglet was none to happy having us drag it into the milking parlor. There was much squealing and fighting. However once the pig was inside and we started cleaning the prolapse, she settled right down and seemed to appreciate that we were trying to help.
Unfortunately there was no way to manually push the prolapse back into the little piglet. I talked to the vet and they couldn’t have been more helpful. After telling me that they could definitely fix the issue, but at an impractical cost, the vet told me to keep the pig isolated and to coat the prolapse with ordinary table sugar. It was at that point that I remembered that I love vets and their practical fixes to issues. Sugar is hygroscopic (thanks Alton Brown for teaching me that) and will pull moisture from the prolapse, also helping with the swelling. We are going to treat the piglet with a sugar rub for the next few days, until we can either reduce the swelling or get to a point where we need to employ the vet directly. In the meantime we treated the piglet with .5 mL of Bantomine and .75 mL of penicillin.
