5 Reasons Why Your Piglets Are Dying (Solved)

You might be confused as to why your piglets are dying or maybe you don’t have a good pig farming business plan. Although piglets dying soon after birth are normal, you shouldn’t let this affect your production.

The most frequent causes of mortality or death in piglets are included in this brief guide. Take a piece of paper and a pen, check the list below and compare it to the piggery management procedures on your piggery if your piglets are dying.

Causes of piglet death from birth to weaning

Piglet mortality is the result of the physical environment and biological and chemical interactions with the piglets after birth. The causes may be birth defects, sow overlay accidents, and managerial practices by pig farm managers.

1. Chilling

Piglets are highly susceptible to pneumonia, which starts as a case of chilling. One extremely dangerous infection that makes it difficult for pigs to breathe and causes them to die is pneumonia. Piglets should not be exposed to cold weather or cool surfaces.

Piglets should always be kept warm, thus one of the best ways to prevent chilling in them is to cover the floor with bedding materials like straws. It’s important to practice frequent cleaning when utilizing bedding materials to prevent chilling in pigs since old bedding can serve as a breeding ground for bacteria and pathogen infections.

2. Sow overlay

Piglets frequently perish as a result of sow overlay. Sow overlay occurs when the mother pig accidentally falls asleep on the piglets while lactating or sleeping. In order to lower the mortality rate for piglets, sow overlay led to the development and adoption of crats and cradle devices in the 1960s.

You must use a crate or cradle to prevent sow overlay by preventing the sow from lying on the piglets when lactating.
You can opt to physically oversee the sow’s activity in order to avoid interfering with the baby piglets, but you won’t be there all day. Get the crate or cradle and place it to lessen the mortality of piglets during lactation.

3. Birth defects in piglets

Birth defects in piglets like cryptorchids, hermaphroditism or intersex, inguinal or scrotal hernia, congenital tremors, and splay legs are some common birth defects in piglets that can
contribute to the death of piglets.

Abnormal conditions at birth in piglets can be internal and you may not easily find the cause or reason why your piglets are dying. It is always advisable to perform a post-mortem to find out the cause of death during any livestock production.

Birth defects in piglets terminologies and meanings

Below is a table of birth defects in piglet terminologies with corresponding definitions.

Birth defects in piglets	Definitions
Cryptorchid piglet	A male piglet with one testicle in the scrotum and one in the abdomen.
Hermaphroditism/Intersex	Female piglet with few teats, tinny ovary, and sometimes difficult to find.
Inguinal/scrotal hernia	A portion of the intestine is mixed with the testicles.
Congenital tremors	Piglets are unable to stand upright and reach the teats.
Splay-legs	Weak legs in piglets.

4. Failure of colostrum intake

Piglets need to consume these defensive substances right away, including the cells and antibodies found in colostrum, the sow’s first milk. For the first day of lactation, colostrum should be released. It should be yellow and creamy. You may observe an increase in the number of extremely sick piglets if there is insufficient colostrum intake.

5. Diarrhoea

In the farrowing locations, diarrhea issues might seem to spread around litter. The infected piglets typically range in age from one to seven days, and they have watery, white-yellow diarrhea that streams out of the anus. Dehydration, a loss of fat reserves, and intestinal dilatation caused by watery contents will all be seen during the autopsy of afflicted piglets. Young piglets with this kind of diarrhea are most likely suffering from the typical type of newborn colibacillosis brought on by enterotoxigenic strains of Escherichia coli (ETEC).

Source: PoultryABC.com

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