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Never fully trust a sow with a litter as she can be over portective

THROUGHOUT generations of domestication, pigs have not lost the basic natural instincts in the breeding female sow.

It took me many years to appreciate this, having heard to the contrary, but practical experience has now proved otherwise.

The female domestic pig is a descendant of the European wild pig, a pig which lives on the forest floor in small, social groups (with the exception of the mature boar) with fellow breeding females and their off spring.

These wild pigs will wean their piglets in the autumn, come on heat and be served. This will result in the sow giving birth about 115 days later, in the spring.

The reason for farrowing in the spring is because the weather is starting to warm up and to coincide with an abundance of food available through the summer months. This will make life easier for both Mum and her piglets.

As the sow's pregnancy develops into the mid to late stages her abdomen will start to swell up with the ever-growing piglets. Within the last week her belly will start to drop as her udder starts to become engorged with milk and the piglets rapidly grow in the final stages.

It is because of this rapid growth of the piglets in the final stages of pregnancy that it is often a good idea to feed the sow more with a higher quantity of food or to feed her a diet with a higher protein content. This should be cut back in the last few days though before farrowing to avoid complications with constipation or the birth process.

Her vulva will start to take on a very soft and enlarged look in order help her large piglets to pass through. This is nothing to worry about.

The wild sow would leave her social group about twenty four hours before the arrival of her new litter. She will select a suitable spot for farrowing, which usually consists of a clearing on the forest floor were she can build a nest.

While in this open nest area she can keep a careful eye out for predators. Anything foolish enough to come close could be charged and attacked. This can still be seen with a lot of individual sows in a domestic situation were they can still be very dangerous to passers-by. After spending many years working with pigs I still never fully trust a sow with litter and always carry a special pig board!

About twelve hours before farrowing the wild sow will go frantic constructing her nest. She will root up the ground in her selected spot and wonder off to collect leaves and twigs to line this nest. She will pick these up in her mouth and walk back to her nest area with an air of intense concentration. She will place the materials on the ground and make a lot of effort constructing everything to her standards.

The nest consists of a circular hollow in the ground with sides, which would make it unable for the piglets to escape from. The whole nest area would be lined with soft vegetation. Her udder will become very swollen with milk also in the final last twelve hours. If you massage the udder slightly and then draw on a teat you can often produce two fine jets of milk- a sow has two holes in each of her teats hence the two jets.

Finally she will settle down and lie on her side. Her front legs will be stretched out in front and her back legs behind to fully expose her udder in preparation for the forth coming piglets. Her breathing will become heavier and faster and she will adopt a far away look.

All this can happen with most domestic pigs but I have seen a few that I actually doubted were pregnant at all and it was not until I either pregnancy diagnosed them or saw piglets that I was certain.

In the final stages some fluid will start to be secreted from her vagina. This is just a natural lubricant for the vagina. Seconds before the piglet is going to be born the sow will tense up and strain. Her tail will twitch frantically and a piglet will be pushed out.

I, like many people, believed at one time the way to keep farrowing sows from having a high mortality was in a farrowing crate. I never liked this system though and played around with various systems but it was only by accident that I discovered what I considered to be the ideal way to farrow pigs.

To start with I used to think that sows should be kept in a small pen to avoid the new born piglets from wondering off and becoming chilled or starved, but it just caused piglets to get trodden on and squashed.

I also used to think that the ideal bedding material was a small, light quantity of straw or a good bed of wood shavings to avoid the piglets getting lost but again I often had a high mortality with piglets being trodden on.

The answer I found was when I put a sow in a large pen (5 metres by 4 metres) and dropped a large bale of straw in. I did not shake any of the straw out, just cut the strings and gave the sow one week to make herself comfortable before she farrowed.

I was fully expecting most of the piglets to literally get lost in the shear quantity of straw, but what happened was amazing, although many people told me afterwards it was just commonsense.

The sow went frantic making a nest within the straw. Pigs are very intelligent animals with very strong natural instincts. Watching her picking up the straw, walking about and arranging her farrowing area kept me captivated for a long time.

When the piglets were being born they were held within the nest area which the sow had prepared and so were unable to wonder off. The sows are normally very quite for the first twenty four to forty eight hours after giving birth and do not leave the nest area. This is what happens in the wild and gives the piglets time to dry off and become nimble on their feet.

After this first couple of days the sow would leave and discard the nest area. She would get up to go for a bite to eat or to have a slurp of water. Then she would prefer to have a wonder about and then to settle down in another part of the pen.

The piglets would then walk over to her, so avoiding the chances of any piglets being laid upon. In the wild the sow would stop in her nest area for the first couple of days before returning to her social group with her piglets.

I have farrowed many sows in this type of environment and hardly lost any piglets. I have farrowed lean large white sows in the middle of winter and found that the body heat from the sow kept the piglets warm in the first few days of life. After this stage the piglets just burrowed deep down into the straw to keep warm.

I did one winter put a farrowing ark in the pen to give extra protection to the sow and her piglets, but the sows constantly refused to use them, preferring to farrow outside in the open straw. If you think about what the wild sow does then this is a totally natural instinct to follow.

As regards to handling the piglets with mum being about I got her into the habit of coming out of her pen and feeding in an enclosed and secure yard. A long board was then used to drive the piglets into a corner of their pen were I could inspect, iron inject or perform any other stock task as was required in complete safety.

I think that for anyone who is keeping any form of livestock it is essential to understand the natural instincts and where their animals have originated from. It makes the business of stockmanship far more rewarding and interesting. With a firm understanding of pig behaviour the welfare of the animals can improve dramatically.

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