Sick Piglet?

A friend bought 3 piglets and dropped them off for me to raise (we'll split the feed costs in 3rds and I keep one pig).

The one pig has pretty goopy eyes, seems a tad congested and he came castrated and looked completely healed but he's now swelling. In good health otherwise, chases his buddies and I have seen him eating and drinking. Greedily snatched a couple cherry tomatoes from my hand before his buddies could get them this morning.

My Vet is out-of-town, I could call his backup but he'll insist on a visit and being in the middle of nowhere, I could buy 4 more piglets for just his farm call fee.

I'm guessing a shot of penicillin? We've got most of a bottle of it in the fridge at the barn. Was bought for an injured pony who had to be switched to a different antibiotic after receiving only 1 shot.

Any different suggestions or dosages? I don't know if the bottle gives dosage amounts, the piglet is slightly less than 50lbs.

I looked into raising piglets before and from what I remember, they need meds that are more specific for them. I'm pretty sure you could google Pen. And piglet though and see what comes up. They are prone to colds, flu, URI type of stuff.
Not sure about the swelling unless the castration was really recent and he's developing an infection. Although piglets are usually castrated quite a bit before the reach 50lbs.
It's worth asking the vet on the phone if the type of meds you have will work and the doses.

There are some backyard pig type of forums out there and a few yahoo groups too that might have some good info. Sorry I don't have the links for you. Maybe try
BackYardHerds.com... there is a whole section for pigs.
Good luck with little Hamlet.

We've got calls in to 3 different Vets, none of which are calling back.

Argh!! They call back in an instant for horses but small livestock, you're lucky to get a call back.

Delfina, I tried google, bing and yahoo search for answers for you, but it kept popping up with guinea pig...totally different species. Sorry about the little ham, and I hope you can get him fixed up soon!

So we heard back from one Vet. Pigs are not his specialty and he doesn't even WANT to see the piggy. Told us to flip him over and poke the swelling, if it goes away it's an umbilical hernia, if it doesn't it's an abscess and we should lance it and then give him a shot of penicillin. He suggested we wait a few days though and see if he gets better on his own...

Yeah, not thrilled. Waiting for the other Vet to call us back. He won't come see a pig unless it's your prized $10,000 pig but he will treat it, if you bring it to his house after hours.

Is the swelling back where his testies were? Or is it on his belly? If its on his belly I would agree with the Vet. Check it and see if it will push back in. If it don't push in go to your feed store and buy a scalpel and lance it then flush it with a syringe and clean water.

His penis is swollen. 2nd Vet called back, he called in a prescription for Tyland 200?? (I think, crazy morning) and I am going to pick that up. If the swelling doesn't start going down by tomorrow morning, we are to bring the pig to his house.

He doesn't have the goopy eyes this morning, a different piglet does (hard to tell which pink piglet is which when they are all running a billion miles an hour so I don't know if he did have them yesterday or I just thought this other pig was him) so we have antibiotic drops called in and Vet wants us to treat the eyes of all 3 pigs as conjunctivitis is highly contagious so it's rather unimportant *which* specific pig has it I suppose.

Did you get any thing figured out with the pig?

It appears to be an abscess from a botched castration, there are two with abscesses we just couldn't see the one until we flipped the piggy over.

We are dosing them with Tyland 50, today was the 3rd day and if the swelling isn't gone by Fri morning, we have an appt with the Vet. Eyes are cleared up on all the pigs.

Piggies now HATE me, not that I can blame them... neighbors aren't thrilled either with all the screaming and us chasing piggies around to give them shots. Oh well, baby calves head to the auction tomorrow so they'll get to listen to the Mommy cows yelling for their babies too! Such a great neighbor I am......

The Tylan is good stuff! You can put it in their feed or water if it is easier to administer that way. It's very bitter though.

I put it in my rat water bottles when they get an RI.