I have a sow that farrowed on Friday into Saturday morning. She had 6 with out any trouble. We tried for hours to get the 7th one out to no prevail. We finally got it out saturday night followed by another one. Sunday morning came and still no cleanings, gave her a shot of 1cc of oxy. She passed another piglet with some cleanings. Tonight(Sunday night) we checked and there still is one inside, we tried to get it out to no luck. What should we do next? I gave her dex and pen on sat. and sun. Going to follow that up on Monday also.

As of 3:30 Monday, she did pass one. I really don't want to sleeve up to check if she has anymore. Any suggestions on what to do?


Thanks

Using a broader spectrum antibiotic would not be a bad idea at all and you might consider adding some banamine to help her inevitable fever.
This sounds pretty typical of fatigue and uterine inertia, calcium supplementation is helpful to prevent this and you can treat them during farrowing with calcium gluconate.

Can you post an update? We have a similar deal going on and I’m just trying to save the sow. She was doing real well until one presented folded in half, and my fat hands trying to turn and pull it caused quite a bit of swelling. Trying to see what kind of outcomes people have had and what more we can do.

This is my experience with retained piglets. One year, we bought some feeder pigs from a farm. Unbeknownst to us (and the farmer it turns out), all of the females came pregnant. These pigs were way too young to have been pregnant and giving birth. Most of them were problematic with retained pigs. We pulled what we could. For two of the mama pigs, we just couldn't get to the last piglets to get them out. In those cases, my vet gave them a mild sedative so that they would stop pushing (they were trying to push as we were trying to go in and pull), used a lot of lubricant inside, and reached in. We were up to our shoulders. We didn't use sleeves, just alot of lubricant on our arms. We were also careful about not injecting foreign material inside from our arms (but I'm sure some got in). My vet had a pig puller that didn't work well at all. What worked the best was a piece of twine (from a straw bale) with a slip knot. We were able to put the slip knot over the head (or whatever you can get to), tighten it, and then pull. Sometimes it takes a bit to get the slip knot onto the piglet, but we just continued to work at it and took turns as our arms got fatigued. (We're both female so our arms are smaller which may have helped to reach in further.)

In one of the cases, the piglet had been dead for many hours inside. When we pulled it, it came apart. It came out in pieces. In this case, the vet actually used a small hook to hook pieces of the piglet and pull it out. This mama pig got heavy doses of Baytril, and we gave her banamine. She healed up just fine. The mama pigs for the other problematic deliveries got Excede and banamine, and they also healed up just fine.

I've heard that mama pigs will deliver retained pigs days later. My vet was always adamant that the piglets needed to come out, and would perform as described above to get them out.