is this true?

Karl Atkins

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Hello,
as you know I am new to this pig thing. my wife talked to some one and said we need to deworm our pigs every month. so she went to the feed store and bought a bottle of Wazine. Back in Kansas I never remembered my dad doing such a thing. any was the guy at the feed store says to soak a slice of bread and feed it to them. Hmm okay so these piglets are afraid of me and run away when they see me coming. so how am I suppose to get each of them to eat a slice of bread? thanks for the help Karl
 

Latestarter

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If you bring some treats with you when you go to see them, they are very smart animals (normally and generally speaking) & they will quickly learn to "like" you... maybe even too much... But getting them used to you while young is pretty important for safety sakeas they can be very dangerous animals when fully grown. As for deworming them, from my understanding, it's not a common thing to be done or required, but I don't know as I don't have experience... Maybe @misfitmorgan or @Mini Horses @mysunwolf
or one of the others with pig experience will chime in.
 

Mini Horses

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Yeah, throw treats and they will sure love you! :p Just don't get in their way or try to hand feed.

Any animal can have worms but some are less inclined than others. I never wormed mine. But they had a large area and were switched between a couple pastures every few months.

They were butchered, USDA inspected and passed.

Here's a site I like & their general approach. Specific to worms, below.

http://sugarmtnfarm.com/2005/10/14/worms-au-natural/
 
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misfitmorgan

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Whoever your wife talked to is incorrect.

If you have butcher pigs...aka only going to be alive for 6-8 months they will be wormed generally before weaning and never wormed again. This is industry standard for commercially grown pigs. USDA even states if the facility is All-in-all-out there should be no need to use a chemical wormer. All-in-all out means a group of pigs is brought in held in the same location until the group reaches a certain size and then moved to the next area generally. Before the move and after the move the areas are cleaned and disinfected. There are variations of this but this is the general meaning of all-in-all-out.

For home standards you can do a mini version of this if your raising in confinement. If your doing a pasture raise, just make sure you can rotate and they are not over crowded.

Pigs should be stocked by weight as below is a general guide(if you live in northern michigan...this is based on your Acre stocking rate in your area)
-100lbs ~ 10+pigs per acre (25lbs would be 40pigs, 50lbs would be 20pigs, etc.)
200lbs ~ 5pigs per acre
300lbs ~ 3pigs per acre
400lbs - 2pigs per acre
etc.

Stocking rates vary a lot place to place so find out what your Animal unit/Acre is for your area and use it as a base if your going to pasture raise.

Our breeders are only wormed when they show obvious signs of a heavy worm load, increase in feed intake while continuing to look thin, coat looks rough, the pig is not being active, the pig is irritable more then normal, etc. In 2.5 yrs 3 of our female breeders have been wormed, our boars were never wormed, our butcher pigs are wormed at wean and never again even if we have them over 8months old.
 
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