Urine Whitish yellow urine

Your pig is excreting calcium in its urine. Some pigs just do that whatever you feed them, others will improve with diet. There's no need for a vet visit at this point.

What exactly are feeding them, and how much of each item? What kind of hay and pellets do they get?

They have oxbow pellets oxbow timmothy hay and as for veggies they get a few twigs of parsley and cilantro, Boston butter lettuce, yellow and green pepper, some radicchio and carrots just a small chunk.

Danichuck said:

They have oxbow pellets oxbow timmothy hay and as for veggies they get a few twigs of parsley and cilantro, Boston butter lettuce, yellow and green pepper, some radicchio and carrots just a small chunk.

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Oxbow pellets contain Calcium carbonate, it can cause pigs to excrete calcium deposits.

I'd cut out the parsley and cilantro and see if that helps. If not, cut out the pellets for several days and see if it improves. Some pigs have calcium excretion issues when eating Oxbow pellets, others don't. Then let us know how things are going.

@Danichuck Is this the kind of thing you are talking about?



This is Oliver's. I'm thinking he's got a calcium issue too, probably, if that's the case. Do you think it's the Oxbow that's doing it? I only give him green leaf lettuce, not romaine.

@bibliocavy, that's a LOT of calcium, if that's what it is. What exactly do you feed him, how much?

@bpatters I feed him 1/8 cup of Oxbow pellets, 1 cup of veggies (green leaf lettuce, carrot, green pepper), plus the unlimited hay. Colian gets the same, but he's not having this problem.

There is a genetic component to it, I think. I have two sisters who have the exact same low-calcium diet -- one is a stone pig and the other isn't.

But if I were you, I'd take him off Oxbow pellets. Oxbow uses calcium carbonate (limestone) to put calcium in their pellets, and it's a harder form of calcium for the body to process than some others. You can try KMS -- a lot of people see a big reduction in calcium deposits when switching. But my pigs have never been fed anything except KMS from the time they were about 6 months old, and I still had one wind up with a stone.

@bpatters I am researching pellets with a lower calcium content, would this be okay? We don't get KMS in Canada. Any other suggestions?

Good luck on finding lower calcium pellets -- they're thin on the ground. If you can't find any, you might want to consider going pelletless. That's what I did.


I don't have any other ideas, but if @CanadianComforts doesn't see this, you might PM her and ask.

I use to feed Oxbow pellets but now my piggies are pelletless, per my vet's advice since I have one stone piggy. At first they were so mad at me for not feeding them their pellets. It's actually a good thing in my case, because now they all are eating a lot more hay, of course they always have a huge mountain of it and they have less calcium deposits. If the calcium build up is that bad, I would consider removing pellets all together.. I haven't noticed anything negative about not using pellets and my piggies don't even notice now. I have heard great things about KMS but haven't used it yet, not sure if I would now since the boys are doing wonderful without pellets. I recommend looking at that chart also someone posted; it's helped me out a ton! Good Luck!

Ok now I'm confused and worried. Both of my pigs' urine looks like the spot in @bibliocavy's picture, it's been like that ever since we adopted them and I didn't realize it was any cause for concern. Their urine is powdery sometimes, never gritty. It always seems yellowish though, and never clear. We feed them a small amount of oxbox pellets each day, I don't measure but it is a small handful, definitely not much more than 1/8 cup each. Their daily staples are green leaf lettuce, green bell pepper, and one baby carrot each. They also will get a little bit of whatever fruit and veggies we have around, but we never give them a lot of anything that's high in calcium, like spinach or kale -- we'll maybe give them one little piece a WEEK. Should I be taking my pigs off the Oxbow pellets?

@scichai, how old are your pigs?

bpatters said:

@scichai , how old are your pigs?

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2 years.

Then I'd switch them off Oxbow to KMS and see if that improves things. A change to Sweet Meadow Farms, which is closer to you, probably won't do much as they also use calcium carbonate in their pellets.

It's not that bad as the picture, that picture looks like its thick but mine are not that bad. I will try to remove the cilantro and parsley but they have always had this with their pellets and I have never noticed it before just recently. I like to use pellets between veggie feelings since they only get veggies at breakfast and dinner time. They eat the pellets throughout the day. Most of the time a small bowl of pellets lasts 2 days.

@bpatters, thanks we will try that!

I thinks urine contains pellets contain Calcium carbonate substance you have to visits to your local vet.