# HEEEEEELP with bottle feeding a two-day old pig



## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

Dropped by to see how the boers we sold a pasture-based farm was working out...they showed us their newborn large black/tamworth piglets...2-day olds. Oh crap..how did we end up driving away with an orangey-pink runt?! Haven't told my husband yet, and my daughter is trying to get it to take a bottle of goat milk in her bedroom. We'll keep it in there for now. OMG, never done this before. It's had colostrum. What should we give it? How often? HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELP! What was I thinking?


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## olivehill (Aug 17, 2009)

You can teach it to drink from a bowl, but it'll be messy right to start out. A few ounces every four hours for the first week, every six hours for the second week, every eight hours the third week and start him on feed at that point. He should be on full feed by four weeks. You may want to give him a heating pad to snuggle on when sleeping. Piglets can't regulate their body temp and while I'm sure it's warm in your house it's not snuggled-next-to-a-sow warm when he's resting. You can offer water free-choice right from the beginning but definitely by the time he's 2-3 weeks he should have it available. 

Good luck.


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

I did this with a one day old piglet. It was very hard to get him to take a bottle, but eventually I did. It was a goat nipple. Go for the pan feeding. Do it in the bath tub or something. The piglet I bottle fedd was doing great, then one morning when it was something like 2 weeks old, it was just dead.


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## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

We've got a heat lamp on her, keeping the temp around 85 (is that ok?) and she's not fighting the nipple as hard. We tried to feed at 3, 5, and just at 7. She roots around our bodies looking for the nipple, but wants mom's not our silicone baby bottle. We may try a pritchard teat for the 9 o'clock feeding.


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## MissyMoo (Jan 29, 2009)

I raised a piggie before from 3 days old to about 5 months old before I sold her to be a breeding pig at someone elses farm. I bought her at 3 days old for $40. she was half wild boar and half duroc. I kept her in the house in a playpen and fed her from a bottle which she fought a bit for the first day, but I forced it on her and drizzled the milk down her just like I do the baby goats that fight it at first.... eventually they get really hungry and with lots of lovin's realize that we love them and the bottle is yummy and then they swiftly turn into bottle addicts. LOL  I put food in her playpen by time she was about 4 weeks old but she didnt really even try it for a bit after that, then she finally started nibbling on it, then I gave her more and then just bottles of watered down milk, until finally water and food, then put her outside at about 2 months old when she started dismantling the playpen and I'd find her running around the house with the dogs and getting into their food and water, HAHAHA! then she got put outside in her own small pen next to the goats and she drank a bottle a day from me (for a treat and cause it meant so much to her) and she ate feed and rooted like a pro. I let her out of her pen to run around loose on the property every now and then cause all I had to do was call her and show her the bottle and she came running for it like a mad pig! HAHAHA. then she grew like a weed and was a big fattie at 5 months at which time she was sold to a nice lady and was going to be used as a breeder.


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## MissyMoo (Jan 29, 2009)

p.s. I just fed her cows milk from the supermarket in a baby bottle. whole, pasteurized cows milk and she was NEVER sick. I never used a heating pad, I just kept my house warm as we needed it and that worked fine for her - especially since she also had blankets like we humans did.


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## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

Here's the video of her: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_-WZvlwyl8[/ame]


We've got lots of goat milk so we'll stick with that...I think she'll get the hang of the bottle pretty quickly...she can CLIMB. After this video we put her in a very tall box...she climbed it! So now she's back in the plastic box with two cookie cooling racks weighted down with books. She is STRONG!


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## lonelyfarmgirl (Feb 6, 2005)

I found the pritchard teat was too small.


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## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

For right now, the pritchard teat is what she's latching on to...she was up every (expletive deleted) hour! She's coming to my classroom today; when I get home I'm taking a NAP! She's nursing well now, but only about 1 1/2 ounces at a time. Any suggestions for getting her to sleep longer?


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## DWH Farm (Sep 1, 2010)

I would also suggest getting her started drinking from a pan. Use a heavy pan with low sides. You can leave some milk in it for her to eat free choice that way, and it will be alot less labor on your part.. We put bread in the milk and the baby pigs learn to suckle on the bread if that makes sense..


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## speakmanfamily (Aug 12, 2011)

Watched the video-- SO cute! She looks strong, just keep up with what your doing.

but i noticed that she was nipping your daughter's fingers for milk, i'd be careful with that, It's cute when shes a teething piglet, but not cute when shes a pig fat pig nipping you for food


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## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

Oh, no nipping allowed AT ALL. She was trying to suckle but now has the hang of it very well. We put her in a wire dog crate with a TON of straw packed into the bottom of it. She could SEE OUT! Weeeeeeee, weeeeeeeeee, WEEEE! Let ME OUT! We draped it with a table cloth so she couldn't see and she went right to sleep; she's like a parrot!


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## speakmanfamily (Aug 12, 2011)

oh good! ^^; just kind of hard to see in the video too


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## Jcran (Jan 4, 2006)

She's been waking up EVERY SINGLE hour for the past three days to nurse. Last night she slept for 3 hours at a time, hallelujah!!!!!! I will NEVER EVER EVER think a bottle piglet is a good idea. Not worth the chaos that it creates in lost sleep, laundry chaos(cause I'm soooo tired I just come home from work and go to bed), etc. Things are looking up, though!


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