Preweaning piglet survival on commercial farms
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Author
Sanz-Fernández, Santos
Díaz-Gaona, Cipriano
Casas-Rosal, José C
Alòs, Nuria
Rodríguez-Estévez, Vicente
Publication date
2023-12-12ISSN
0021-8812
Abstract
Preweaning piglet mortality (PWM), a trait highly related to litter size, is one of the main concerns associated with productive efficiency and animal welfare in commercial pig farms. The objectives of this work were to study piglet survival at the farm level, to establish a survival rate (SR) as a target indicator to be improved, and to model it based on other reproductive parameters. Analyzed data corresponded to 580 Spanish commercial farms with a total inventory of 809,768 sows. These farms showed a mean SR of 85.70% piglets born alive (BA), which decreased to 81.81% when total piglets born (TB) were considered. The SR was strongly associated with prolificacy (P < 0.01), the parities with the highest prolificacy being those that had the lowest SR. Thus, the highest correlations were for the SR of piglets BA in the third and fourth parities (r = −0.460 and r = −0.452, respectively, P < 0.01), and for the SR of piglets TB in the fourth parity (r = −0.546, P < 0.01), which was the one with the highest prolificacy. The values corresponding to the quartile of farms with the highest SR within the most productive farms were established as targets to be improved, which were ≥88.5% of piglets BA and 83.2% of piglets TB. Nevertheless, the direct associations shown between the piglet’s survival and prolificacy and other productive factors, such as the age of piglets at weaning, the farrowings per sow and year and the farrowing interval, suggest the convenience of modeling the risk of PWM on farms to have its own target of survival index to be improved.
Document Type
Article
Document version
Accepted version
Language
English
Subject (CDU)
636 - Animal husbandry and breeding in general. Livestock rearing. Breeding of domestic animals
Pages
33
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Is part of
Journal of Animal Science
Citation
Sanz-Fernández, Santos, Cipriano Díaz-Gaona, José C Casas-Rosal, Nuria Alòs, Llibertat Tusell, Raquel Quintanilla, and Vicente Rodríguez-Estévez. 2023. “Pre-Weaning Piglet Survival on Commercial Farms.” Journal of Animal Science 102. doi:10.1093/jas/skad408.
Program
Genètica i Millora Animal
This item appears in the following Collection(s)
- ARTICLES CIENTÍFICS [2555]
Rights
© The Author(s) 2023