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piglet help

6K views 62 replies 18 participants last post by  Tanya 
#1 ·
My brother went hog hunting and brought home a piglet...
So now i guess Im stuck with it now. I'm not sure how i feel about that. Im not a fan of pigs, but i feel bad for the little guy.
He is VERY tiny. Umbilical cord is still attached, but dry and has been bitten off pretty low. I would say a day or 2 old, maybe 3 but i know NOTHING about pigs. ill post a pic.
Should i put iodine on his cord even though its dry?
Getting him to eat hasn't been fun, but am getting him to swallow a little. I'm feeding goat milk by the way. He hasn't gotten much.
I've tried feeding him 2x, and we've had him for about 3-4 hours. I read they need fed about every 3-4 hours, so I'm trying to stay on that schedule.
Right now he is in a little cat crate buried and snuggled in towels right next to me. Hes staying warm, and is squealy, and likes to explore my room. I think he is pretty healthy.
He's a wild pig, so i wiped him down with a warm soapy rag because i dont want whatever he may have.
He has peed, but i havent looked for poop in his crate.
Ok so questions:

How much milk should he be getting at each feeding?
Read that the milk needs to be at 90 degrees. Just confirming that is correct.
Should he be getting dewormed, or anything? Any medications at all?
If you have ever bottle fed piglets, what is the best way you get them to take a bottle? I am using a screw on yellow and red nipple. I think its called a Pritchard but i forgot lol.
Probably a very stupid question: baby goats dont drink water until about 2 weeks. Is it the same for piglets? Or does he need water free choice?

If i think of anything else, ill share :)
Thanks!
 
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#52 ·
Is it male or female?

You may be able to rehome it to someone raising pigs, too.
Male :) that's what were still trying to do, so far a few people interested, but not fully sold on the idea...
He is extremely cute (as are all babies) but, please be careful and recognize that this isn't a domestic animal...WILD HOGS HAVE ACTUALLY KILLED PEOPLE!!!
I know, we are taking the necessary precautions and correcting any bad behavior.

Whew! He is growing quick! Were up to 1/3 cup milk with baby cereal every 4 hours. we got him a week ago tomorrow, so Im guessing around 9-10 days old? Time to introduce solids? Maybe start feeding less frequently?
I gotta get some pics of him, he's growing fast!
Hopefully we will get the hard work done, and someone can take him from there.
 
#53 · (Edited)
You could gradually add a small amount more of baby cereal for now. When the piglet is 2 weeks of age you could go to 6 hours between feedings. Keep adding a small amount more of baby cereal every few days. After he reaches 2 1/2-3 weeks of age, you could start offering a few pellets of piglet food each day. Each week add a little more baby cereal to his milk. At 4 weeks, try going to 8 hours between giving him cereal milk and see how it goes.

The goal is to keep adding baby cereal each week to thicken his milk, increasingly the time between feedings each week and offering a few more daily pig pellets each week.

At 8 weeks his milk should be thick like runny oatmeal and offered 2 X a day and he should be offered a small handful of pig pellets each feeding. They start weaning give or take during that 8th week. By 9-10 weeks he should be eating pig pellets only.
 
#55 ·
@Nigerian dwarf goat wow a piglet. Of the boar kind. Now that is interesting. Pigs are omnivorous. Flesh and vegetation. Be very careful. We had a pot belly called chops. He was as tame as you could get them. We had to give him to a farmer.
He ate both the alsations on the property. They eventually put him in the freezer. He made a good watch dog but was a danger to everything meat.
 
#56 ·
Vertebrate Mammal Dog breed Working animal Fawn

the only non blurry picture I have of him hahah he is very active lol

we are trying really hard to find him a home, but so far no one wants him. Poor dude. He is very healthy and everything though so that is good :)
 
#59 ·
Everywhere the Spaniards went they would turn loose hogs and goats. This was to provide meat for sailors but also, the hogs would completely disrupt the native villages and begin the process of conquering a new land.
Hogs revert back to wild in just a few generations. They destroy ecosystems and eat up the plants, birds, etc. that the native peoples rely on for health.

The world collectively has spent the last 30 years cleaning up islands and such of these destructive creatures. Some breeds of island goats have been saved (Catalina Arapaho) there's no real use for wild hogs though.

Now that this one has been caught it's highly illegal to turn him loose again. Just like any other invasive species.
 
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