What the textbooks don’t tell you about… Savaging

There is no pig textbook, save one, from the 30 or so on my shelves which even mentions savaging – an alarming and annoying occurrence –, let alone what to do about it. That surprises me, as that great pig-specialist veterinarian, the late Mike Muirhead once told me that he thought the incidence could be as high as between 1% and 3% in replacement gilts, so it must be relatively common. I have no figure to give you for older sows. By John Gadd I first came across savaging in the 1980s. For