What are the common causes of piglet death? What pig farmers need to know

Improving the survival rate of piglets is an important factor in increasing the economic benefits of pig farming. How can the survival rate of piglets be improved? This requires raisers to strengthen management, analyze the causes of death, and take corresponding measures promptly and accurately. Although there are many causes of piglet death, the main ones commonly seen in production are as follows:

Crushing to death

1. Within one week after birth, piglets are prone to being crushed to death. The main reasons are:

1) Some sows are old and weak, slow to react, obese, lacking maternal instinct, or irritable in temperament; first-time sows may also have poor experience in protecting piglets. In short, the poorer the sow's maternal instinct, the more likely piglets are to be crushed to death.

2) Piglets may be congenitally weak after birth or weak and powerless due to illness, or may lack vitality and move slowly because of cold weather. Even if the sow is relatively sensitive, the piglet's low, hoarse cry may not be enough to alert the sow, so it is often crushed to death. Alternatively, because teat fixation is poor, piglets fight over teats, causing the sow to change position sharply, which can also easily trample piglets to death or injury.

3) Whipping or rushing the sow causes the sow to become startled; overly long bedding straw allows piglets to burrow into the straw pile, making it hard for the sow to identify them or for the piglets to escape; a sow house that is too small leaves piglets no room to turn around or escape, all of which can easily lead to piglets being crushed to death.

2. Corresponding measures taken in response to the above situations

1) Strengthen care for piglets. Sows crushing piglets mostly occurs when they return to the pen and lie down after eating and defecating. Therefore, someone must remain present before the sow lies down. If a piglet is heard screaming sharply, rescue it quickly.

2) Set up piglet protection rails. On the two sides of the pig bed against the wall, install protection rails using round logs or steel bars 8-10 cm thick, at a distance of 20-30 cm from the wall and the ground, which can prevent the sow from crushing piglets to death when sleeping against the wall.

3) Set up a piglet box. Place newborn piglets in a piglet box or basket lined with soft dry straw, and let them out for nursing. Within 5 days of age, nurse them once every 1-2 h. Although setting up a farrowing box takes labor and time, it can effectively prevent the sow from crushing piglets to death.

Freezing to death

After birth, piglets have thin skin, sparse hair, very little body fat, and weak thermoregulation ability, so they are prone to freezing to death in cold weather. Therefore, creating a warm environment for piglets is an effective measure to prevent freezing. The most suitable environmental temperatures for piglets are: 30-32°C at 1-3 days of age, 28-30°C at 4-7 days of age, 25-28°C at 8-30 days of age, 22-25°C at 30-60 days of age, and 19-22°C at 2-3 months. The warming measure is to create a warm microclimate specifically for piglets, so as to raise the local environmental temperature around the piglets.

1. Thick bedding straw

When there are no other heating facilities, or when heating facilities exist but stronger heating effects are desired, thick straw should be spread on the ground or in the piglet box. This warming method is suitable for small pig farms and farm households. However, the thickness of the bedding straw should be appropriate, and at the same time the sow and piglets should be trained to defecate at fixed times, keeping the bedding straw dry without needing frequent replacement.

2. Infrared lamps

Hang an infrared lamp in a piglet box or protection pen lined with bedding straw. Generally, a 150-250W infrared bulb is used, and the temperature is controlled by adjusting the height from the ground. This method is simple and easy to carry out. It can not only give the sow and piglets suitable temperatures separately, but also prevent piglets from being crushed. However, when using infrared lamps, attention must be paid to the height of the bulb; if it is too low, it can easily scorch the skin of piglets or the sow, and fires are also likely to occur.

3. Heated brick bed

This method is mostly adopted in northern regions. The heated brick bed is built on one side of the piglet warming room. One heated brick bed is built for every two adjacent pig beds. The heated brick bed uses the middle partition wall as the flue, and a smoke channel 25 cm deep is dug underground on both sides, covered with bricks, and on top of the bricks a 4 cm thick layer of mud mixed with straw is applied.

Of course, there are many warming methods, and they should be chosen according to one's own conditions to create a suitable environment for piglet growth.

Disease

Disease occurs due to ineffective measures in sanitation, epidemic prevention, disinfection, and feeding, and, combined with careless observation and delayed discovery and treatment, and more importantly due to the congenital deficiencies in newborn piglets' body temperature regulation mechanism and immunity, this constitutes the key to success or failure in piglet survival. During the piglet stage, anemia, enteritis, runt pigs, and endemic white muscle disease often occur.

1. Anemia

Newborn piglets are extremely prone to iron-deficiency anemia. Anemia not only directly or indirectly causes piglet death, but also reduces piglet growth rate and forms the vice of littermates injuring each other. Therefore, piglets must be supplemented with iron at 2-3 d after birth. Of course, there are many compounds used as iron sources, such as ferrous sulfate, ferric sulfate, ferrous chloride, ferric chloride, ferrous ammonium sulfate, ferrous gluconate, and so on.

2. Runt pigs

Improper feeding and management during the suckling and weaning periods, as well as congenital deficiencies, can cause piglets' skin to lose luster, hair to become withered, appetite to be large, head large and body small, development to be stunted, growth to stagnate, and vitality to be completely lacking, even causing death. There are many causes of runt pigs, which can be divided into fetal runts, milk runts, disease runts, and feed runts. Strengthen the feeding and management of sows during pregnancy to ensure normal fetal development, prevent inbreeding, which causes low vitality in piglets; strengthen the feeding and management of lactating sows to increase milk yield; when fixing teats, fix small and weak piglets to the front teats of the sow; promptly foster piglets without milk or with insufficient milk to other sows, and ensure they receive sufficient colostrum; prevent and treat diseases promptly, deworm, give special care to small piglets, feed high-quality protein feed, and increase the feeding of high-quality green feed to supplement nutrition. In short, runt pigs must be given special care; otherwise, they will die due to low resistance to disease. Even if they do not die, they will eat without growing and waste feed.

3. Diarrhea

There are many causes of piglet diarrhea, but whether it is yellow diarrhea, white diarrhea, or red diarrhea, one should not rely solely on injections and oral medication. Comprehensive measures should be taken:

1) Before farrowing, the farrowing house must be thoroughly disinfected. Throughout the suckling period, the farrowing house should be kept dry, warm, and well ventilated.

2) The sow's feed should be complete in nutrition, especially with more green feed to ensure sufficient vitamins. The feed should remain relatively stable; sudden feed changes often cause changes in the sow's milk and lead to piglet diarrhea.

3) Prepare complete feed for piglets according to nutritional standards, and be sure to add compound vitamin additives and growth promoters.

4. Endemic white muscle disease

The occurrence of endemic white muscle disease mainly originates from deficiency and insufficiency of selenium in the feed, and the deficiency and insufficiency of selenium in the feed is in turn related to the level of available selenium in the soil. To prevent and avoid this disease, selenium and vitamin E can be added to the feed, or newborn piglets can be injected with 0.1% sodium selenite physiological saline. In summary of the various piglet diseases above, corresponding technical measures should be taken:

1) Keep the pig house floor dry and clean, frequently change bedding, and soak and disinfect drinkers and feed troughs with limewater every day (disinfect at least once every three days).

2) Strictly vaccinate according to the immunization program and supplement various nutrients.

3) Detect illness early and diagnose and treat promptly.

4) Supplement feeding for piglets early, which can train the function of the piglets' digestive organs and promote gastrointestinal development. At the same time, once piglets learn to eat feed, they will no longer gnaw randomly, reducing the occurrence of disease.

Starvation to death

Insufficient milk in sows is manifested as insufficient or absent milk after farrowing. Piglets become restless and cry, follow the sow to nurse, and the whole litter generally becomes emaciated, seriously affecting piglet growth and development, and even causing death. This is mainly because the sow was first mated too early and the mammary glands did not develop soundly, or because the sow had insufficient nutrition during pregnancy, causing the sow to become emaciated and lack milk, or because the sow suffered from gastroenteritis and indigestion before and after farrowing. Corresponding measures should be taken for different causes:

① Mate at the appropriate time.

② Prepare feed according to the nutritional needs of the sow during pregnancy, increase green feed, meet mineral and vitamin needs, and prevent the sow from becoming too fat.

③ Strengthen the feeding and management of the sow before and after farrowing to ensure the sow's health before and after farrowing.

Improving the piglet survival rate is a complex issue involving many aspects, and different effects on piglet survival rate exist due to differences in time, place, breed, growth and development stage, pig farm equipment conditions, feeding and management level, and so on. According to the role and nature of each link's effect on the organism, the key is the internal cause, namely matters related to crossbreeding, fetus protection, and the feeding and management of pregnant sows and suckling piglets. Only when the maternal reproductive body condition is good, piglets achieve normal growth and development during the fetal period, have strong vitality, and are promptly supplemented with various nutrients needed by piglets, can the piglet survival rate be improved.