Michigan

[keyt1969]

Something the prosecutor said today... Basically that no one anywhere has a pet chicken.

How many people consider their chickens to be pets? I'm going to compile a list.

All of our animals...chickens, ducks, pigs, rabbits and 3 out of 14 turkeys are pets!

 

[Stacykins]

Do you have to do a C section or make an incision or just pull on whatever part of the piglet appears? Sounds like there were 3 in there that were STUCK. And why did the two who were born die?
I never had pigs so I honestly don't know.

No incisions, you just glove up, lube up, and reach in. If more than one is trying to make it down the birth canal, you usually push one back and then start working one forward. You try and get a hold of whatever part of the piglet you can.

If necessary, the Cesarian should be done by a vet. But as said, that only happens when you haven't been able to get them out vaginally, then the vet can't after they have a go. Though if you know the piglets are already dead, they can loop a tiny flexible saw wire up and around the dead piglets, and remove them in pieces. It is pretty gross, but it beats a Cesarian if they're already dead, since it is a harder recovery on the mother, more invasive. I mean, manually removing them vaginally is already invasive, but less so than surgery.

 

[Trefoil]

Raz- My chickens, ducks,geese, turkeys, and peacocks are pets. When people ask what I do with them, I tell them the truth, I feed them. They are always into something new and a pleasure to have around.
Just because I would never have a spider as a pet doesn't mean that someone else shouldn't or couldn't. What happened to "its a free country"?

 

[Olive Hill]

Do you have to do a C section or make an incision or just pull on whatever part of the piglet appears? Sounds like there were 3 in there that were STUCK. And why did the two who were born die?
I never had pigs so I honestly don't know.

Sorry, I edited for clarity but looks like we were typing at the same time. In extreme cases, yes, you can do a C-Section if it's needed. You would exhaust the vaginal route first and move to the surgical if there were not another option.

No one was home when Pork Chop farrowed so everything that happened is not known, but I will give an educated guess based on the sow in question and what Daron told me about what he found when he got home. Pork Chop is not a normal case in any way shape or form. She is only, right now, 8 mo. Which means she was bred at just over 4mo -- based on the timeline she was bred when I dropped her off. Which just boggles the mind. To give some perspective pigs do not usually reach sexual maturity until 6-8 months old. And AGH tend to be towards the tail end of that IME. IOW, he sisters would just be beginning their first pregnancy or being bred for the first time when she gave birth. Why she went into heat so early I do not know. I know it has never happened in my lines before and I have had many clients take their pigs home and keep them together full time and it has not happened to any of them. With that in mind I'd chalk that part of it up to a fluke.

Now, my understanding of what Daron found is that the piglets that she passed were quite large as well, so her young age plus large pigs probably resulted in the ones that did pass being in the birth canal for too long even though they were able to pass on their own. (Another option is that they were born alive but because of her distress with the complications she did not care for them/nurse and they died and/or they were so stressed by their long birth they did not try to nurse and died.) Those that were retained were likely stuck behind a very large pig and couldn't get out. It may have been anatomical, but probably a combo of it being anatomical and the exhaustion from passing two large pigs already. There is only so much the body can take, as any woman who has given birth knows. If someone had been there they would have been able to see the labor not progressing properly, gone in and manually pulled the pigs -- or in a worse case scenario done a C-Section which may not have saved all the pigs but would have given the sow a very good prognosis and probably saved at least some of them.

 

[Olive Hill]

Raz - My chickens are pets, I don't make any money off of them and I have yet to eat any of them.

It's rather ignorant to proclaim that people don't keep chickens as pets, considering the variety of animals people do keep as pets.

An animal's classification and what people do with them are often two very different things. I consider some of my favorite hogs to be like pets, but they are decidedly livestock.

 

[keyt1969]

What am I going to do with seremas? How can I possibly let something so tiny free range? Would I be better off building them a special coop and run? I am thinking something that is inside the dog run, but that the dogs can not get into, but would be safer than just running around the yard? I wanted seremas, if ya'll recall... BUT, I was waiting on things. Like building an aviary just for them. Wanted to build the aviary first... Well, didn't work that way, so... Advice on keeping this pair from becoming dinner for predators.

We have 3 seramas. They don't free range but they do stay in an open run (no cover) and they are there from early morning to dusk. They are the better behaved birds as far as going in to roost. If you have a dog run that would be perfect. That's where we originally had ours when we first got them but they got along so well with all the bigger birds that's where we kept them. They don't require that much room and ours are pretty easy to please. I love ours, they are my faves!

 

[Rusty Byrd]

Something the prosecutor said today... Basically that no one anywhere has a pet chicken.

How many people consider their chickens to be pets? I'm going to compile a list.

RAZ../I have 28 of them. My grandson stopped by as I was taking frozen oatmeal with berries out to the birds. He told me they are more spoiled then the dogs.

Farmerboy...Sorry about Porkchop. Hope the cow improves!


Everyone needs to wash their car! Doesn't it usually rain after you get the car washed?

 

[RIRJen]

Anyone in the Eaton Rapids/Holt/Mason/Lansing area have an incubator firing up this week? I have Speckled Sussex eggs and Silkie and Showgirl eggs sitting here because someone messaged me and then never followed through with having them shipped. If not I'll make a big batch of scrambled eggs this weekend lol

 

[RIRJen]

OH! and the poopy eggs my broody is sitting on are making peeping noises

 

[RBahmer]

An animal's classification and what people do with them are often two very different things. I consider some of my favorite hogs to be like pets, but they are decidedly livestock.

Same here. A lot of my sheep are considered pets but ultimately they are livestock.