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.