In an earlier post (10,000ft View), I alluded to the fact that piglets are sometimes fostered from their birth mother, and adopted by another mom on the farm. In this post, I will have the opportunity to share more about what that means, why it is necessary, and who these awesome sows are that adopt piglets in need.
Ideally, all piglets would be raised by their birth mother. Unfortunately, some sows have more babies than they can care for. Even if they have enough milk, sometimes one piglet is smaller or is bullied within the litter. If they are not removed from their birth litter, those piglets will starve.
It is unacceptable to allow a piglet to starve, but what do we do with these piglets?
First, we find an adoptive mother. We look for a sow that in the past has done a good job caring for her previous litters. We spend time picking out just the right sow since she needs a strong motherly instinct to raise piglets that are not her own.
[caption id="attachment_860" align="aligncenter" width="576"] This mom raised 14 piglets of her own. Now that her piglets are weaned, she is going to adopted 12 babies today.[/caption]The second step is to find all the babies that are not doing well on their own mother. We identify and gather those piglets together to form a new litter.
[caption id="attachment_859" align="aligncenter" width="576"] This piglet is too skinny. He wasn’t doing well on his own mom. Today he is going to be adopted by a different sow.[/caption]Step three is introducing the newly formed litter to their new adoptive mom. If we did a good job picking the right mom, the transition is very smooth. Usually she accepts her piglets right away and lies down so they can nurse. These piglets were not doing well on their own mother and are usually itching to get a full belly from their new mom.
[caption id="attachment_856" align="aligncenter" width="625"] Piglets just introduced to their new mom![/caption]
Once you introduce the adoptive mom to her litter, all you have to do is sit back and watch the piglets turn from skinny into healthy, full bellied piglets. The sow does all the work by producing milk and caring for her new litter.
[caption id="attachment_858" align="aligncenter" width="576"] This is a different litter from the same farm. These piglets are 18 days old. They have been on their adoptive mom for almost 2 weeks. They look awesome! You can’t even tell that 2 weeks ago they were small, skinny piglets.[/caption]
After a couple of days you don’t even recognize that these piglets used to be smaller or skinnier than others in the room. It is really amazing the difference a new mom & new litter mates can make in the life of a piglet. Thanks to these adoptive moms, we have another tool we can use to properly care for the pigs entrusted to us.
[caption id="attachment_862" align="aligncenter" width="576"] These adoptive siblings are getting along very well. They have been on their new mom for 3 days. Already they are looking better![/caption]