pot belly piglet question

[1eyejer]

im thinking about aquiring a pregnant pot belly pig,,do need to remove teeth from the piglets???

 

[PattySh]

I have no experience with pot bellies but I just had a full size litter of piglets and at birth removed the teeth with a pair of flat pliers and they still scratched mama up quite a bit. I recommend it. Do it at birth tho while they are still a bit sleepy. They get "rugged" real fast!

 

[jhm47]

I would snip them off. When we raised commercial hogs, if we didn't do it, we would have problems. There are a total of 8 "needle" teeth. They are needle sharp, and can cause quite a bit of pain to the sow, and also to the babies on the teat next to them. I used a side cutting pliers and just cut them off. Didn't seem to hurt the babies at all, and they went back to nursing immediately.

 

[PattySh]

jhm47- Do you take the teeth off right to gum level. I was a bit nervous doing that the first time and boy do they wiggle. I may have not gotten them short enough?

PS- my heifer came into heat so didn't need the patches! Wrote it on the calendar so I will be able to breed her hopefully in March.

 

[elevan]

On the boys you also should remove the scissor teeth as they can do MAJOR damage when they are older with them.

 

[drdoolittle]

Just found this older post about cutting piglets teeth. I was wondering the same as PattySh----do you snip the teeth right at the gum? Also, where are the scissor teeth on the males? I have to cut my piglets teeth tomorrow morning, and am really nervous about it----don't want to injure them. I'm also going to give them their iron shots---but someone told me the paste you feed them works better. What do those of you with experience recommend?

 

[elevan]

from: http://www.fao.org/docrep/T0690E/t0690e06.htm#unit 27: teeth clipping in young pigs

Clipping the teeth

If the sow is not tied up separate her from her young and place her in another pen. Take care as the sow with a litter can be dangerous.

Corner the young pigs and keep them together or place them in a box.

Hold the head and press the corner of the piglet's mouth so that the jaws open.

Place the clippers on either side of one pair of teeth making sure that the tongue is not in the way. Tilt the head so that the pieces of the teeth will fall out of the mouth.

Cut the teeth as close as possible to the gums.

Clean the clippers before using them on another piglet. Operate on the rest of the litter and when you have finished put the piglets back with their mother immediately. Keep young piglets warm.

The scissor / eye / canine teeth are the teeth that you want to clip / remove. If left the males are much more aggressive with them than the females later in life. Some people prefer to only remove the sharp points on the teeth. While that may work for females it is not a good idea for males...and I don't even recommend it for the females.

 

[drdoolittle]

Thank you so much, elevan!! I so appreciate your help and feel much better about doing this. I definately will clip them down to the gum!

 

[elevan]

I saw your pics on BYC. Why don't you post a thread over here so all the BYH'ers can see?

 

[drdoolittle]

elevan----there is a post on here with pics.----"Babies Are Here!"