cleft liphair lip piglet

Question
can a baby piglet survive a cleft lip? My neighbors pot belly gave birth today to 10 piglets one a little girl has a cleft lip leaving her one nostril to breath from, she gave her to me to bottle feed and said if she makes it i can have her :) so i need to know can she survive this or is it a sign of further problems? So far she is eating and seems ok all the sites i have found so far says to just euthanize them. can u give me a good opinion on this please

Answer
Your baby may or may not survive, depending upon the severity of the deformity and what, if any, other health issues she faces. Lack of an anus or other bowel deformities are not unheard of in pot-bellied pigs.

Piglets need a lot of warmth. A heat lamp works well for this, so piggy can get as close or far from the heat as she wants.

Newborn piglets get colostrum from their mother's milk, providing them with some protection from disease and important trace nutrients. I assume your piglet never got a chance to nurse. I do not know what your friend gave you to feed the baby. If she gave you some form of colostrum, great. If not, you can get it from jefferslivestock.com or valleyvet.com

You can get swine replacement formula from those same suppliers. Another excellent alternative is goats milk. Serve the milk or formula slightly warm or at room temperature, not hot or cold.

For healthy babies, pan feeding is safer than bottle feeding. When bottle feeding, it's easy for the liquid to go down the wrong pipe, so to speak. When liquid gets into the lungs it can cause pneumonia. Even day old healthy babies can drink from a pan. Please note that I keep saying "healthy babies"; I do not know the extent of your pig's condition, and so in your case, it may be safer to bottle feed now, and later on, provide water through a swine nozzle or giant rabbit water bottle.

Make sure she is going potty as well as eating. If she is doing both, there's a chance she may survive. But if her bowl is not connected, she will not survive without surgery, if that is even an option.

I suggest getting her to a vet for an exam. A vet can tell you if she will do better with a pan or bottle. A vet will listen to her breathing and heartbeat and digestive system, and alert you to other potential problems. A vet may also want to give her extra colostrum or vitamins. There's a list of vets that see pot-bellied pigs at www.farec.org

On petpigs.com there's a link to the Duchess Fund, which is a pot-bellied pig medical database available to veterinarians. Your vet may find some helpful information there. I also suggest contacting petpigs.com and farec.org (there may be a delay hearing back from farec, due to a family situation) and explain your situation. They may have additional helpful advice, or be able to put you in contact with others who have had cleft lip pigs.