What are the symptoms of salt poisoning in pigs?

Because salt has the effect of enhancing appetite, some unscrupulous traders often add excessive salt to the feed before selling piglets to increase the piglets' weight and seek exorbitant profits, which leads to poisoning, so farmers should pay attention when buying piglets to avoid being cheated.

Sodium is one of the essential elements for animals. Usually, adding 0.3-0.5% salt to the feed is enough to meet a pig's needs. When pigs lack it due to sweating, vomiting, diarrhea, urination, etc., it should be supplemented in time, otherwise slow growth and pica (such as eating feces and urine, licking hair, rooting at walls, rooting at soil, etc.) will occur, but if too much is eaten and drinking water is insufficient, poisoning symptoms will appear. The usual causes of poisoning are as follows: in rural areas there are leftover pickles, brine and other foods containing too much salt, which people are reluctant to discard, and they mix them into the feed all at once to feed pigs. In addition, pigs usually get less salt supplementation, and once salt is available, they will eat it voraciously. All of these can lead to salt poisoning.

Tests have proved that when drinking water is sufficient, feeding feed with a salt content of up to 10% will not cause salt poisoning, because excess salt is quickly excreted with urine. Pigs should be ensured a sufficient supply of clean drinking water.

Treatment: At present there is no very good method. After a pig is poisoned, absolutely do not supply water, as this will accelerate its death. Use 25% sorbitol or 20% mannitol to lower pressure, use chlorpromazine and tribromide agents for sedation, orally administer diuretics (dihydrochlorothiazide) and AgSO4 (to cause purgation), and try to expel the salt, which can relieve the symptoms.