New mini pig will not eat solids... help

[poteet76]

HI! My husband brought home a 5 week old mini pig to add to our farm. He is strictly eating out of a bottle and I can not get him to eat solids at all! I haev tried everything I have found online. Any help would be appreciated!! I work full time and have 10 cows, 2 goats, 2 turkeys, 1 chicken, 1 horse and 3 dogs. I can't keep feeding a mini pig a bottle 4 times a day, lol

 

[cassie]

Pigs can be opinionated. Years ago my mother was raising an orphan pig in the house. We called him Billy. One day she was giving Billy a bottle when my dad came home for lunch. My dad asked my mother if she was going to feed that pig or fix him his lunch. My mother put Billy down and predictably he started screaming. My dad picked him up and gave him his bottle because he couldn't stand the noise. When it was time for Billy's next bottle he wouldn't take it. He kept screaming and swinging his head back and forth. My mother finally figured out what the problem was. My dad had sat in the rocking chair and he rocked the pig while he fed him. Billy wanted to be rocked and from then on we had to rock him when we gave him his bottle.

Years later I had my own orphan. I found some baby pig meal and I mixed it with milk until it was a gruel. I changed him over to the gruel when he was quite young. A lot younger than yours. One evening I had no milk for some reason and I mixed his feed with warm water instead. That pig wouldn't eat it and he wouldn't sleep. None of the rest of us did either. He screamed all night long.

Now for your pig. I suggest you find a baby pig meal and mix a little with warm milk. When he is good and hungry and before you give him his bottle, offer it to him. Maybe dip his nose in it. He probably won't even taste it. Put a little on a spoon and put it in his mouth. Keep doing this every feeding and he will get the idea. Maybe lengthen the time between bottles so he is hungrier than usual.

 

[poteet76]

Thanks! I will try this.