Special-yoghurt is wonder product for keeping weak piglets alive

The sky-high price gives a strong incentive to make an extra effort to keep even the weakest and smallest piglets in the litter under ca. 700 g. alive.

” There is a great focus on mini-piglets out in the herds and here we have found the recipe on how we keep them alive”, says Karina Mikkelsen, Senior Advisor at Danish Pig Advisory Center.

She speaks based on her experience with consultancy of approx. 40 Danish pig herds and a few abroad, including Moldavia and Latvia.

"In my world, the weak new-born piglet deserves a chance as long as it is able to walk. And if you give it a good yoghurt product you can also save the piglet, even if it lies down”, she underlines.

Recommends one specific yoghurt-product

The recipe for saving the mini-piglets is called supply of energy and lots of warmth.

And when it comes to providing an energy boost to ensure a stable blood sugar, a very specific product is unsurpassed, says Karina Mikkelsen based on her experience.

"Some pig producers give the mini-piglets sugar water, cola and other fancy substances, but they only get a quick boost from that. The weak piglet loses quickly the energy again and when it gets cold in the pen, it will die”, she says.

Instead, the Senior Advisor recommends giving the mini-piglets yoghurt in form of the curdled milk product Yoghurlac® from R2 Agro.

"It is impressive how Yoghurlac® just works. There are many yoghurt products on the market, and this is what works the best.”

“I have seen that my customers have used other yoghurt products in vain, and when they switched to Yoghurlac® it worked and kept the mini-piglets alive”, says Karina Mikkelsen, who today recommends the R2 Agro product to all her customers.

Mini-piglet fit after 20 minutes

Karina Mikkelsen stresses her point with a completely fresh experience in a herd.

"I have been visiting a customer today. There was one mini-piglet after farrowing, and I thought that it might be too optimistic to keep it alive. We tried to mix some yoghurt anyway, even though the customer did not think she had the time. The employees are busy too, but sometimes you just have to slow down. We gave the mini-piglet Yoghurlac® and within 20 minutes it went around, and there we looked, because we both thought it was a very optimistic attempt. It also just tells, that when the piglet gets a stable blood sugar, and the muscles are provided with energy and it is thoroughly warm, then it can survive. If those factors are not right, it will die."

Recommendations: Here is how you do it

Karina Mikkelsen recommends the following procedure to keep the mini-piglets alive:

• When the staff enters the farrowing stable in the morning, they must bring Yoghurlac® in a bottle. After the piglets have had colostrum and before the new-borns are enclosed in the covered creep area, the weakest get a shot of the yoghurt.
  
  
• Close the covered creep area when the sow gets up to eat.
  
  
• Keep the mini-piglets in the covered creep area for up to two hours. They must have lots of warmth, this must not be given a low priority. If the piglet is cold, it does not get energy to the muscles, it becomes stiff in the body, and then it lies there and cannot walk at all. Check on them every 20 or 30 minutes and give them some yoghurt each time to provide them with energy. It will be obvious that they will have more energy for each time you check on them.
  
  
• When the piglets are up walking, it is time to open the covered creep area, because they will now be ready to join their mother again. If they are not up walking, they must spend half an hour additionally in the covered creep area.
  
  
• Administer the yoghurt to the piglets again when split suckling, and again at litter equalisation, then they should be OK to do well.
  
  
• Put the mini-piglets to the top of the top of the newly farrowed sows, which means a second, third or fourth parity sow with small fine tits and a soft udder. If you do not have that, but only have older newly farrowed sows, or if many mini-piglets are born in one day, you can go a few days back to find a suitable sow.