What are the six major misconceptions about pig farming? Pig farmers need to guard against them

Misconception one: adding water to pelleted feed

Adding water to pelleted feed and stirring it into a porridge-like consistency often destroys its nutrients and reduces its nutritional value. The correct method is: feed the pigs with pelleted feed, then give them water.

Misconception two: castration and vaccination done together

At present, some farmers who raise sows attach great importance to vaccination but neglect scientific methods. First, to save trouble, they castrate piglets and then immediately give them vaccinations; second, they give vaccinations when the sow is pregnant. Zhou Hongchao states that doing so, on the one hand, easily makes the castration wounds of piglets slow to heal, and at the same time the vaccination effect is relatively affected. On the other hand, after a sow becomes pregnant, she is especially sensitive to external stimuli, and vaccination is a strong stimulus, so giving vaccinations can easily cause stillbirth or miscarriage. Therefore, after a sow becomes pregnant, it is best not to give vaccinations, and piglets should be vaccinated 10 days to 15 days after castration.

Misconception three: treating illness with only metamizole sodium

Some farmer friends, seeing that a pig will not eat and has a fever all over its body, hurriedly inject a large dose of metamizole sodium. They think that as long as the body temperature is lowered, the pig's illness will improve. In fact, metamizole sodium has very large side effects, and can easily cause anaphylactic shock in pigs, with body temperature dropping sharply, leading to respiratory and circulatory failure and sudden death.

Misconception four: not diagnosing or treating illness in pregnant sows

Some farmers believe that after a sow becomes pregnant, if she is sick, giving injections and medication will be harmful to the piglets in the womb. But this understanding is wrong. Because clinically, some drugs such as tetracycline, streptomycin, chloramphenicol, and aspirin are all administered to pregnant sows by intravenous injection, and the drugs do not pass through the liver into the fetal body, so the toxicity is relatively large; but if changed to oral administration, after the drugs are detoxified by the liver, they become safe and effective.

Misconception five: feed nutrition is not comprehensive

Some farmers feed pigs whatever they have on hand, as long as the pigs eat their fill. They do not pay attention to the fineness of the feed, and even less to the nutrition and daily feed amount needed at different growth stages of pigs. In this way, not only is feed utilization reduced and feeding costs increased, but the pigs also grow slowly and the time to market is prolonged. Zhou Hongchao reminds that when raising pigs, it is essential to mix corn, cake meal, fish meal, bone meal, additives, vitamins, etc. in proportion according to the nutritional needs of pigs at different growth stages, and make them into nutritionally complete feed, so that pigs gain weight quickly, go to market early, costs are reduced, and economic benefits are high.

Misconception six: feeding cooked feed wastes more

Feeding raw feed cooked, first, destroys the nutrients in the feed, causing the nutritional value of the feed to decrease; second, wastes labor, consumes fuel, and increases expenses; third, after the cooked feed is diluted with water and then fed, it looks like the pigs eat a lot, but in fact most of what they take in is water. If pigs ingest excessive water, it can also affect normal physiological functions such as digestion and absorption, and increase the burden on the kidneys. Therefore, in production, wet mixed feed should be fed, and the moisture content of the feed should be such that it forms a ball when held in the hand and breaks apart when dropped on the ground.