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. 2024 Jan 3:102:skad408.
doi: 10.1093/jas/skad408.

Preweaning piglet survival on commercial farms

Santos Sanz-Fernández  1 , Cipriano Díaz-Gaona  1 , José C Casas-Rosal  2 , Nuria Alòs  3 , Llibertat Tusell  3 , Raquel Quintanilla  3 , Vicente Rodríguez-Estévez  1
Affiliations

Preweaning piglet survival on commercial farms

Santos Sanz-Fernández et al. J Anim Sci. .

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.

Keywords: animal welfare; piglet livability; preweaning mortality; prolificacy; survivability.

Plain language summary

Sow prolificacy and preweaning piglet mortality have increased parallelly on commercial farms. This loss of piglets is a concern of efficiency and animal welfare, and it requires the improvement of piglet survival by reducing the number of stillborn piglets and piglet mortality during lactation, paying particular attention to hyperprolific sows (≥15 total piglets born per litter). Data from 580 commercial farms with an average inventory of 809,768 sows have been analyzed to propose two predictive models based on several reproductive parameters and two survival rate targets with the aim of reducing this problem, which are ≥88.5% of piglets born alive and ≥83.2% of total piglets born.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Comparison between (a) survival rate for piglets total born (TB) and TB prolificacy according to sow parity; (b) survival rate for piglets BA and BA prolificacy according to sow parity (N = 580 farms).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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