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Swine genetics and reproduction
The performance of pigs is the result of two influences: genetics and environment. Because the genetics of a pig plays an important role in its performance and meat quality, all pig producers should be familiar with the potential and application of genetic selection.
The genetic potential of pigs can have a major influence on the productivity and profitability of a pig enterprise. It is the combination of genetics, nutrition, health, environment and management that influences such factors as litter size, growth rates and carcass quality.
The reproductive herd is for the multiplication of maternal and paternal lines that are prized for economically valuable reproductive traits, or, traits that generate desirable offspring reliably. Typically, prized reproductive traits include litter size, particularly total number of pigs born, and pigs weaned, weight of the litter of piglets at birth and weaning, wean-to-estrus interval (WEI), and pigs per sow per year (PSY). In more recent years, length of time a sow remains productive in the herd (longevity or survivability) is increasing in priority for major genetic lines. These traits are prioritized due to the impact on value of the sow to the herd.
Background The pig, Sus scrofa, appeared in South East Asia ~4.2 million years ago (M) [1], colonizing a wide range of habitats thereafter including Europe and North Africa. European and Asian wild boars are estimated to have diverged ~1.2 M [2]. The wild boar is among the first of the domesticated livestock species, an event that occurred approximately 8,000-10,000 BC both in Europe and in Asia in independent events [3,4]. Today, thanks to the intense modern breeding and...
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Introduction The conventional management in the swine industry is for weaning to start the sow’s next reproductive cycle. However, breeding sows during lactation has been proposed as an alternative that may increase sow productivity. If sows conceive while lactating, farrowing interval and nonproductive days may be decreased, increasing the litters per sow per year. Early attempts to breed sows during lactation yielded inconsistent results (Crighton, 19701 ; Stevenson and...
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Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), caused by a member of the genus Alphacoronavirus (1–3), was first identified in England in 1971 and later in other countries, such as Belgium, China, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Korea, and Thailand (4–11). In April of 2013, PED emerged in U.S. swine (12) and was detected in swine herds in 18 U.S. states by the end of October (http://www.aasv.org/pedv /PEDV_weekly_report_103013.pdf), causing considerable economic losses. An isolate of PED virus...
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Current market review and perspective of Florfenicol, Tilmicocin, vitamins and aminoacids
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Introduction The fertility results of pig artificial insemination (AI) in The Netherlands are considered to be one of the highest worldwide. More than 98% of the sows in The Netherlands is mated through AI. Sow farmers put great trust in AI and are fully depending on the quality of the product. The Dutch cooperative pig AI centers put large efforts in producing high quality insemination doses as far as semen quality and genetic quality. In this paper the following aspects...
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Introduction Background to life stages and metabolism-mediated development The pace and pattern of life stages is the subject of organismal life history, one of biology's most integrative disciplines. The life histories of mammals are described by a number of characteristics, some of which relate to the timing and duration of life stages...
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INTRODUCTION Boar spermatozoa are characterized by high susceptibility to lipid peroxidation (Cerolini et al., 2000). Indeed, mammalian spermatozoa are unique in structure and chemical composition and contain high proportions of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) in the phospholipid fraction of their membranes (Cerolini et al., 2000; Surai, 2002; 2006). This feature of these highly specialized cells is a reflection of...
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Kurt Wegleitner, Managing Director for Addcon, talks about Performance 2017. “Managing hyperprolific sows in Asia” was the motto of the Performance 2017 which took place on March 14th before VIV Asia 2017....
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Introduction Influenza A viruses (IAVs) are Orthomixoviruses able to infect many animal species including birds, pigs and humans [1]. The segmented genome of IAVs allows the exchange of gene segments between IAVs during infection and replication [2] facilitating the emergence of novel IAV reassortants with pandemic potential. The 2009 pandemic IAV contained genes from swine...
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Interaction effects of feeding Bacillus subtilis DSM 32315 in weaned piglets
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Introduction
In several countries, Piétrain boars are indispensable as a terminal commercial sire and constitute a large group of boars kept by the AI centers. Selection of these boars is mainly based on fattening performance and meat quality characteristics. However, the effects of a such narrowly focused selection on semen quality have been poorly investigated. The main objective of this study was to...
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In a sector aiming at standardizing the final product at the maximum, variability in pig weight at slaughter age is still one of the major issues in the swine industry nowadays. Why is pig weight variability important? – The world as a distribution and not an average Producers often talk in terms of weight average, treating a batch as if it was a single animal. Consequently, the batch...
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Implications Knowledge on the economic impact of claw lesions and lameness helps to understand how both the diseases influence economic losses, and indicates how these problems should best be addressed. The fact that the prevalence of lameness varies throughout the reproductive cycle and peaks after sows were housed in the insemination stable is crucial for risk factor analysis. Furthermore, it implicates that focus on...
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If we want to maintain a prolific and productive herd, we must continue to prioritise the introduction of high genetic merit replacement gilts into our herd. Additionally we must manage and feed them correctly in order to maximise the prolificy of breeding herd and efficiency of feeding herd in the future.
The old adage “If it’s not broke, don’t fix it” is often bandied about in all...
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Current market review and perspective of Florfenicol, Tilmicocin, vitamins and aminoacids
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Introduction The reproductive output of pigs depends on many factors affecting both females and males. It is generally accepted that there is a large variation in the fertility results, mainly caused by farm- and sow-related parameters (Hanenberg et al., 2001). In southern Uruguay, seasonal variations in reproductive performance of swine herds are observed, with farrowing rate below 57% between November and February...
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I have been reading some really good research lately, but something about it bothers me. I do understand that a lot of sows are culled before Third Parity, and that this is a good place to start with Sow Longevity. For me personally, five or six parities should be the average for all sows that have farrowed at least once. Good Sow Longevity in my mind is Parity 7 or 8 or more! Are you able to get good Piglet Birth Weights with today’s...
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For class I had to summarize a paper by Dr. W.L Flowers titled “Trouble-shooting Fertility Problems”. From this summary I was to make a “Decision Tree” to help decide where Fertility Problems occur. I thought that it might be helpful to others. Please let me know if you would add anything to it, or even change it. I would love to hear from you as to its usefulness to you! For clarity of definitions: A “Regular Return to...
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Efficient sow reproduction is fundamental to achieving a successful, sustainable and economically viable swine industry. The key criteria used to assess the efficiency of sow performance are the number of piglets weaned per litter, per year or per lifetime. The modern hyperprolific sow has a great potential to produce piglets and 30 piglets weaned per year is an achievable target. If performance is less than this, then action needs to be taken to identify those...
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Under the teaching of Dr. William Flowers Ph.D this semester, I have learned about some new concepts in how to rear Replacement Gilts. Research shows that Replacement Gilts raised in litters of 7 or less will be more productive as sows over their first three parities. I would imagine even keeping the Replacement Gilt litters to 10 piglets or less will help the Replacement Gilts develop better than if their dam’s litter size is larger. What is the reason...
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Pork CRC research into the performance and eating quality of entire male pigs and those immunised against gonadotropin releasing hormone (GnRH), using Improvac™, has revealed that androstenone and skatole, the compounds linked to boar taint, were significantly higher in the belly fat of entire males than in immunised males.
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