Why worming is important

[Ferguson K]

We test and worm our animals religiously. We monitor, we prepare, we send fecals to the vet. Yet nothing could prepare us for what we found in our potbelly pens this morning.... this is from one sow, but now every animal on the property is suspect.

Fecals at random will be taken and dropped off at the vet tomorrow labled "pig" "goat" "horse" etc. Gross....

Edited to add: we haven't tested in about three months. The pigs haven't been tested since January.

 

[Southern by choice]

Learn to run your own... figure out who is the parasite problem and cull.

20% of your animals are responsible for 80% of the parasites.

 

[Ferguson K]

I'm looking into getting a microscope next month. The pigs are continuously the problem. These potbellies seem to have running round worms. Every. Time.

They're about to earn their ticket off of the island.We've had them less than a year and in that time I've had more problems with round worms than I've ever had before. We made the decision if they don't "clean up" their act they'll either be sold or processed.

The big pigs don't have as many problems as them.

 

[Baymule]

Is that a worm?? or a snake???? Gheesh!

 

[babsbag]

Ditto what @Baymule said.

 

[Ferguson K]

It was about 6 or 7 inches long. It was GROSS. John saw it while we were cleaning pens. Risky Rita is the culprit.

Going to have to worm the entire farm again, as the pigs have been being let out during the day to clean up feed and stretch their legs.

 

[arrowti]

We've been lucky to not have worms in our pigs before.. Gross! Or any animal actually... yet.

We feed them activated charcoal every now and again.

 

[GLENMAR]

 

[Ferguson K]

Round worms can be transmitted to just about everything. The worst part about them is they only need two (?) Weeks to fully infest the host. They have a quick lifecycle and a female can lay up to 1000 eggs a day. That's why they can be lethal, especially in puppies. A worm ofthat size has lived out it's lifecycle and is moving externally to lay eggs to find another host.

A few years ago we harvested some (feral) hogs that were so infested with worms their intestines were moving. Moving with millions of worms. Those hogs were not eaten. They were fed to the coyote and buzzards on the ranch. I've never seen anything like it.

To imagine that inside one (or all) of my pigs turns my stomach in knots.

All I had in the medicine cabinet for pig worker is Wazine. You have to feed it through their water system and it's a pain to use. I'm getting them some injectable from the vet tomorrow when I drop everything off.

No more pigs loose in the yard playing clean up. Normally they are given the "leftovers" from when we clean pens. They live digging for bugs through the old hay and make nests out of it. We give them lots to test up, too, they like that. Recently we started letting them out to root up around the pens due to the recent rains. Pens were mucky! They've since dried up and the pigs havent been back in them, but, they are turned out on the "pasture" sometimes so better safe than sorry.

I have a cabinet full of wormers. I don't want to start throwing worker at the animals and get a resistance so I will wait to see what Dr. D. says.

 

[luvmypets]

Oh my gosh, that is scary. I probably would have denied I even saw the thing