engleski

Influence of parity number on litter size in Swedish Landrace sows

Litter size greatly affects the efficient pig production, and depends on many factors, including sow parity number and breed. According to previous studies the greatest number of piglets died during or shortly after birth, with the largest share of technological losses occurs up to weaning. The aim of the present study was to assess the impact of sow parity number on the litter size of the Swedish Landrace breed in commercial production conditions. Study was carried out at pig breeding farm located in north-west part of Croatia, with closed system of production based on the „all in - all out“ model. The animals were kept in controlled identical housing and microclimatic conditions. Data collected referred to 501 litters from the 1st to 6th parity. The total number of piglets (TNB), number of live-born piglets (NBA), number of still-born piglets (NSB) and number of weaned piglets (NW) per litter were observed. Statistical analysis was performed using Statistica v.9 software (StatSoft Inc.). The TNB on an average was 10.65, whereat NBA was 10.20 and NSB was 0.45. The average NW was 9.25. Averagely, the lowest TNB was recorded in parity 1 sows (10.01), while the lowest NBA (9.57) and NW (8.67) were noted in sows of parity 6. The lowest average NSB was recorded in parity 2 sows with 0.35 still-born piglet per litter. The highest average TNB (11.53), NBA (11.13) and NW (9.78) were recorded in sows of parity 3, while the highest NSB (0.69) was observed in parity 5 sows. We have found that there was a significant difference for TBN between the first and third litters (P<0.01), as well as for NBA between the first and third (P<0.01) and third-and-sixth farrowing (P<0.05). The results indicated that TNB, NBA and NW increased up to the third farrowing, and then slowly decline. In the organization of the piglet production it is necessary to conduct adequate technological procedures with the sows before the piglet delivery, as well as during and after farrowing. Depending on this procedures piglet losses during the preweaning period may be reduced and NW per sow per year increased.

sow; Swedish Landrace; parity; litter size

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