That sounds like a nightmare to me. A sick nightmare at that. Never had to do that... Take that back, we had a sheep once that had a lot of trouble lambing and finally had to have the vet out to take care of it. Had to put that ewe down when it was all said and done. Saw something similar to what you describe happen to a cow owned by someone living across the road. The calf was too big and the cow struggled too long. In spite of his best efforts, the vet had to euthanize the cow. Very sad, just as your experience in recent days has been sad. Sometimes it seems everything goes wrong. Sorry for your experience.

Gee, I'm exhausted just reading your post- let alone the emotions, efforts and costs involved for you. I'm sorry about the piglets and the lost sow. It can't be this bad next time,(can it?) if that's any comfort. So sorry.

Boy thats an AWFUL week! I have to agree with Poochella that your future farrowing years can only be better. Good luck!

Could you have some kind of disease going? I would definitely discuss it with my vet. I am sure you are up on all porcine vaccinations, but I would check anyway.

Sometimes these things just go in cycles and no one (including the vet) knows why. When we had the dairy cows these kinds of things would occur (weird medical problems) and the vet would tell us of several others in the area with the same problems.

Let's just hope it passes. One farm thing I have never done is pull piglets! lots of calves, but no piglets.

Gld

So sorry to hear of your nightmare, I cannot even imagine going through all that, you must be exhausted. Does your vet have any insight to why so many of your pigs are having trouble?

So sorry for your loss.

Sheila

Just as curiosity, have you changed feed or vitimins, feeding regimines? It can be amazing what having a little too much or not enough, minerals or vitimins can do to animals. We see problems with certain hay, grain, vitimin feeding programs in young horses. Calcium-Phosphorus balance is the most common. Alfalfa hay skews the Calcium way over, leading to tight tendons, other problems. Many people feed Alfalfa hay, lots of grain, makes for heavy weight on young bones that need different minerals. See a lot of lame young horses from poor feed choices.
With the different pig breeds named, I can't point at breeding being the factor. Sometimes you get a line of related animals who have the same problems, so you point at breeding. Don't use that stallion or his relatives again.

The other person mentioned a disease. Something that would be passed between pigs or a germ living in the barn, farrowing areas. Sounds like a reasonable idea to me.

I am most familiar with horse problems and a couple things happen to bred mares. Rhino that causes abortions coming to mind first. All horses can carry the Rhino bugs, might give them a cold type infection, no big deal to healthy horse. Rhino causes the bred mare to often slip her foal. There is a Rhino vaccination, given at 5-7-9 months. Problem comes when giving the vaccine, because the mare can ALSO abort from the shots! Abortions from shots happen often, not always on the first or second shot either. Just really a heartbreaker to lose a foal that far along. However for the big breeder, multiple mares, they save most of the crop. They also preg check mares, palpate a couple days after shots, to ID any mare who lost a foal. Get her bred back immedialtly. Nobody TELLS the single mare breeder about problems with shot until AFTER foal is lost, "Oh yeah, abortions can happen when you do those shots". Keeping track with acquaintences, they lose more than 50% of foals when giving shots. Pretty high losses. I advise single mare owners to avoid the shots. Few of those mares are exposed to Rhino anyway, not much new horse traffic thru their barn.
The other horse thing was feeding fescue grass. With the infected fescue, mare develops a very tough bag tissue holding the foal. Bag also turns red, hence the name Red-Bag Delivery. I think the foals can't get out of the bag quick enough to breath, and those who are helped, still have problems, die. One of the big warnings for bred mare owners, don't feed fescue grass/hay in the last couple months of pregnancy. Those with fescue grass, dry lot the mares in paddocks, feed hay to avoid problems.

With the terribly high numbers you are having, perhaps some help is called for. Your vet should be asking questions, call the local State College, get some information coming. It may be your local problem, could be wider spread. Pig problems affect a lot of people, big money loss. When we had swine Cholera locally some years back, the State had teams of people all over the place, IMMEDIATLY. Slapped a bunch of rules into effect, regarding shipping, hygiene, selling, checking before unloading.
Our local area had thousands of pigs being raised, was a major feeder pig source. The rules did prevent the spread of the disease, helped restrict the problem and loss of more pigs.

You need to make some noise, get some big time help with such a serious problem. The money loss is pretty bad for you right now. Allowing a problem to spread could wipe folks right out of business. Get the vet and some of those experts we all pay for down from the College to help find the root problem, come up with the solution so the pigs are back to normal.

My best wishes to you, sure hope the answers come soon.

My vet is large animal professor at LSU he has extensive experience with hogs. We think that it is just the heat. These pigs have been vaccinated for everything and they were in isolation for 60+ days after purchase. I have blood test done every 90 days and nothing shows up. Just chalk it up to just one of those things. I use a good premix from McNess Feeds. Our corn has been tested. We only make enough feed to last for one week and only order vit. and min for one month, so it is not a feed issue. Gilts are notorius for doing such things as this. They push so hard during the first pigs, they deplete themselves of calcium. It is hard to give cal.ph. to hogs as a drip cannot be established. We just will take it as it comes. Thanks for the information, Pat

Gosh, I don't own pigs, but I sure feel bad for you. Your post makes it clear that y'all are exhausted mentally, physically and financially. I hope things improve on the next go 'round.
Question, what is a Gilt, compared to a sow? A first year mother??
Best wishes for better days,
Carla