Yes, probiotics for the time being indeed. I do slightly suspect that she may improve as she gets bigger as well. I do remember my big girls being occasionally slightly subject to the same problem.
With that said, how _do_ you go about diplomatically cleaning their tootsies?
Non-emergency poo question and Lumps success story.
-
Talishan
- You can quote me
At our house, we take a small plastic cup (disposable cocktail cups work well) and fill it with warm water. I hold the pig, and my husband holds the cup. The appropriate foot is selected and I simply lower the pig's foot into the water.
They usually just stay still for a little while, not sure what to make of it. Then some of them will start to fuss. My husband then applies greens to the face with his free hand.
It takes a remarkably short time for warm water to soften their fecal material enough to come off. Be SURE to keep her nails trimmed down, because the majority of the crud gets caught in the nails. If you keep the nails well trimmed (which we don't do as well as we should), the material on the footpad itself they usually clean off themselves. Then all you have to soak off is anything in the nail area or between the toes.
They usually just stay still for a little while, not sure what to make of it. Then some of them will start to fuss. My husband then applies greens to the face with his free hand.
It takes a remarkably short time for warm water to soften their fecal material enough to come off. Be SURE to keep her nails trimmed down, because the majority of the crud gets caught in the nails. If you keep the nails well trimmed (which we don't do as well as we should), the material on the footpad itself they usually clean off themselves. Then all you have to soak off is anything in the nail area or between the toes.
Thanks for the tips! Funny, sounds just like my household and toenail trimming, only with the genders reversed. Oh, and I'm totally stealing "applies greens to the face" for my own nefarious purposes. I had to explain what I was laughing about to Beloved.
Penny continues to make steady improvement. I'm seeing a definite correlation between gorging (strangely enough the only thing she really likes to gorge herself on is the 3rd cut Timothy hay I recently got from KleenMama, not the copious quantities of cilantro and pepper and carrot she's also given) and being a bit loose a while later, but it seems to be steadily getting better. Of course she is still on the BeneBac+, though not currently getting the Poop Soup. Who knows what her ultimate stable state will be, but I'm going to pipe down for the moment and stop bumping this post unless I have some real new data to add to it.
I shall instead try to take a good photo of the girls and post something more social elsewhere on the site :-)
Thanks everyone.
Penny continues to make steady improvement. I'm seeing a definite correlation between gorging (strangely enough the only thing she really likes to gorge herself on is the 3rd cut Timothy hay I recently got from KleenMama, not the copious quantities of cilantro and pepper and carrot she's also given) and being a bit loose a while later, but it seems to be steadily getting better. Of course she is still on the BeneBac+, though not currently getting the Poop Soup. Who knows what her ultimate stable state will be, but I'm going to pipe down for the moment and stop bumping this post unless I have some real new data to add to it.
I shall instead try to take a good photo of the girls and post something more social elsewhere on the site :-)
Thanks everyone.
-
Talishan
- You can quote me
I can't take credit for "applies greens to the face". I stole it from bpatters. :-)
The best thing for her to gorge on is KM's 3rd cut. As long as she's getting some greens, it's better that than the other way around.
Try offering her some fresh, washed leaf lettuces (redleaf, greenleaf, escarole, endive) and see what she makes of them. They have a milder smell than cilantro and pepper. Pigs go by smell much more than by sight in deciding what to eat.
The best thing for her to gorge on is KM's 3rd cut. As long as she's getting some greens, it's better that than the other way around.
Try offering her some fresh, washed leaf lettuces (redleaf, greenleaf, escarole, endive) and see what she makes of them. They have a milder smell than cilantro and pepper. Pigs go by smell much more than by sight in deciding what to eat.
Oh yes. She's all about the cilantro, and will actually eat masses of it, though that doesn't seem to produce the same effect vis-a-vis loose poops. Right now though she's a very picky eater, she'll eat a few pellets, tons of hay, tons of cilantro, the new oxbow C disks, and not much else. Gotta broaden her gastatorial horizons!
-
GP_mum
- Supporter in '13
Not sure if it's related but my 2 newly adopted sows also had soft poop for a few months initially. I suspect that it was due to my feeding them KMS 3rd cut which is more leafy. They were eating hay that had more stems in their previous home (rescue). I had kept their vegetables quite similar to what they had been fed.
Things improved with feeding them a high fiber pellet (recommended by the vet) which I've since stopped as it had a lot of high calcium herbs and their poop improved. However, i do feed 2-3 of these high fiber pellets to my paralyzed sow to keep her poop from turning too mushy.
They also got 1/2 tablet of the Oxbow dietary supplement daily which also helped. I'm now feeding the Oxbow tablet only as a supplement and not daily since things have normalized.
It's been 6 months as everyone's poop is looking normal. Giving probiotics should help as well. All the best with your pig.
Things improved with feeding them a high fiber pellet (recommended by the vet) which I've since stopped as it had a lot of high calcium herbs and their poop improved. However, i do feed 2-3 of these high fiber pellets to my paralyzed sow to keep her poop from turning too mushy.
They also got 1/2 tablet of the Oxbow dietary supplement daily which also helped. I'm now feeding the Oxbow tablet only as a supplement and not daily since things have normalized.
It's been 6 months as everyone's poop is looking normal. Giving probiotics should help as well. All the best with your pig.
Hi guys,
I just realized I should post a quick followup for posterity, as it's been a few years.
I made Penny poop soup on and off for a few months, tried a number of probiotics, a multitude of different dietary approaches, had her poo examined by wise physicians, and generally worked hard to address her lackadaisical-coprophagia issue. Here's what I've observed;
Penny has never got very good at eating her cecal pellets, despite being a greedy little thing. She's lived with her sisters ever since the we got the strangles cured, so she's most certainly been inoculated with the appropriate gut biome at this point, but still she can only be bothered to eat some of her own production, some of the time. This _appears_ to be largely psychological in nature. She can physically reach her bum (just) so no mechanical issue I don't believe. She's not calorie deprived <cough> either. On the contrary, she weighs in just shy of 3lbs (partly overweight, partly just a very big frame) and she's happy, active, glossy of coat and hilariously people-social (having been hand-raised she's quite certain she's a people, and converses with me loudly whenever she feels it's time for more food. Which is all the time. I swear she can hear the rustle of what might be a cilantro bag from next door.)
So what if anything helps? Calorie restriction.
Her diet (along with her sisters) is primarily 2nd and 3rd cut Timothy hay (KMS Hayloft), supplemented with occasional (every couple of days) fresh leafy veggies and continuous access to Oxbow adult pellets for vitamin C supplementation. Interestingly they all greatly prefer the hay to the pellets, to the extent that I just keep the pellet hopper full and let them eat what they like. In practice they eat less than 1/2 of the pellets they're entitled to. So she's certainly not being given piggie junk food, but she can easily maintain her weight on the hay alone. If offered only pellets, they'll eat a few but will then go on hunger strike until provided hay again.
So how to achieve calorific restriction? Drop the grade of hay. The less primo the hay, the more enthusiastic she is about bothering to run it through her system twice. I'm a bit stuck because the whole herd practically has to eat from the same trough, but when I _severely_ restrict access to hay, and make sure it's not terribly nice hay, she behaves significantly better. The more calories she can get at, the less attention she pays to her pooply duties, and vice versa.
So not a cure exactly, but that's the steady state maintenance phase in which we find ourselves.
Let me know if anyone has any questions or thoughts.
Dermot.
I just realized I should post a quick followup for posterity, as it's been a few years.
I made Penny poop soup on and off for a few months, tried a number of probiotics, a multitude of different dietary approaches, had her poo examined by wise physicians, and generally worked hard to address her lackadaisical-coprophagia issue. Here's what I've observed;
Penny has never got very good at eating her cecal pellets, despite being a greedy little thing. She's lived with her sisters ever since the we got the strangles cured, so she's most certainly been inoculated with the appropriate gut biome at this point, but still she can only be bothered to eat some of her own production, some of the time. This _appears_ to be largely psychological in nature. She can physically reach her bum (just) so no mechanical issue I don't believe. She's not calorie deprived <cough> either. On the contrary, she weighs in just shy of 3lbs (partly overweight, partly just a very big frame) and she's happy, active, glossy of coat and hilariously people-social (having been hand-raised she's quite certain she's a people, and converses with me loudly whenever she feels it's time for more food. Which is all the time. I swear she can hear the rustle of what might be a cilantro bag from next door.)
So what if anything helps? Calorie restriction.
Her diet (along with her sisters) is primarily 2nd and 3rd cut Timothy hay (KMS Hayloft), supplemented with occasional (every couple of days) fresh leafy veggies and continuous access to Oxbow adult pellets for vitamin C supplementation. Interestingly they all greatly prefer the hay to the pellets, to the extent that I just keep the pellet hopper full and let them eat what they like. In practice they eat less than 1/2 of the pellets they're entitled to. So she's certainly not being given piggie junk food, but she can easily maintain her weight on the hay alone. If offered only pellets, they'll eat a few but will then go on hunger strike until provided hay again.
So how to achieve calorific restriction? Drop the grade of hay. The less primo the hay, the more enthusiastic she is about bothering to run it through her system twice. I'm a bit stuck because the whole herd practically has to eat from the same trough, but when I _severely_ restrict access to hay, and make sure it's not terribly nice hay, she behaves significantly better. The more calories she can get at, the less attention she pays to her pooply duties, and vice versa.
So not a cure exactly, but that's the steady state maintenance phase in which we find ourselves.
Let me know if anyone has any questions or thoughts.
Dermot.
(The is the most slimming shot I could grab, the rest of them look decidedly....gestational)
Oh, sorry, yes, by 'less primo hay' I mean 2nd cut from KMS Hayloft rather than 3rd cut. They all have access to pellets almost all the time (oxbow adult, primarily for the stabilized vitamin C), though strangely they are never terribly enthusiastic about them. Even Penny mostly ignores the pellets. The hay is apparently much more palatable.
SHOP AMAZON