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. 2021 Dec 31;12(1):94.
doi: 10.3390/ani12010094.

Effects of Litter Size and Parity on Farrowing Duration of Landrace × Yorkshire Sows

Mingming Ju  1 , Xiaonv Wang  1 , Xinjian Li  1 , Menghao Zhang  1 , Lidan Shi  1 , Panyang Hu  1 , Ben Zhang  1 , Xuelei Han  1 , Kejun Wang  1 , Xiuling Li  1 , Lisheng Zhou  2 , Ruimin Qiao  1
Affiliations

Effects of Litter Size and Parity on Farrowing Duration of Landrace × Yorkshire Sows

Mingming Ju et al. Animals (Basel). .

Abstract

Litter size has increased and farrowing duration has also prolonged in recent years. The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of litter size and parity on farrowing duration (FAR) to estimate the possibility of selecting a short farrowing duration. We recorded 32,200 parturitions of 8420 Landrace × Yorkshire sows, determined farrowing duration, litter size, parity, gestation length. Results showed that total number of born (TNB) and parity obeyed a cubic (p = 0.0004, p = 0.004) relationship while number born alive (NBA) and number born dead (NBD) obeyed a linear (p = 0.0239, p = 0.0035) relationship with FAR. Gestation length obeyed a linear (p = 0.02) relationship with FAR. FAR of sows with stillbirth was longer than that of sows without stillbirth. Stillbirth rate increased rapidly from about 2% to 4%, especially when FAR was over 240 min. FAR gradually prolonged with the parities. FAR of 7th parity sows was longer than that of 1st~6th parity sows (p < 0.05), but different parity sows had little difference in the same FAR interval except for gilts. Results indicated it was possible and necessary to consider FAR into pig breeding without worrying about decreasing of live litter size or negative effect of parity if FAR was shorter than 300 min.

Keywords: Landrace × Yorkshire sows; duration of farrowing; litter size; parity.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Relation farrowing duration to litter size. Cubic relation between total number of born (A), number born alive (B), number born dead (C) and farrowing duration.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cubic relation between parity and farrowing duration and litter size. Cubic relation between parity and farrowing duration (A), total number born (B), number born alive (C) and number born dead (D).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Relation between gestation length and farrowing duration and litter size. Relation between farrowing duration (A), total number born (B) and number born alive (C) with gestation length.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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