Sow Longevity: a Missing Element?

Is there a chance that “Sow Longevity” is a missing element in today’s modern pork industry? Let’s see if keeping a sow for a longer period of time makes sense? Also, could it be possible to adopt some simple, but effective, management tools that will increase “Sow Longevity”? Let’s start by defining “Sow Longevity”. I suggest that we use two measurements those being

1. Numbers of Parities

2. Pigs Weaned/Sow Lifetime

A larger number in both cases should equal a more profitable sow.

I have always been interested in “Sow Longevity”, but I really got super interested in “Sow Longevity” when the farm I was working on had a Large White sow on her 13 parity, and a Landrace sow on her 11th parity. The Large White sow had decent statistics, but her really amazing trait was her apparent ability to hold up to confinement conditions. The Landrace sow had had 10 litters of 10.5 pigs weaned per litter as an average, and she still wasn’t done! 

These two sows were producing at a time that the Agri-Vest SSP Farm was putting Duroc blood into the sow herd. The ½ Duroc, and ¼ Duroc sows weaned less pigs, and bore piglets for shorter lenths of lifetime than the old lines of Large Whites X Landrace. Now I do know that you want some of the Duroc blood ( or other terminal breed ) in the finishing barn, but the ½ Large White ( or Yorkshire ) ½ Landrace makes more sense to me for the farrowing barn.

Let’s look at some of the studies on “Sow Longevity” and see what they say. In the article“Sow Longevity Scrutinized” Ken Stalder and Timo Serenius state that production systems with the lowest replacement rates were the most profitable ones having lower gilt replacement cost helped to achieve this. Ron Bates of Michigan State University states in his article “Sow Longevity Can Reduce Cost of Production” that costs can be controlled by using high producing sows for longer periods of time. This actually allows you to produce a piglet for less money. In a 2009 National Hog Farmer article, Joe Vansicle states that some research seems to show that increased body fat leads to improved lifetime sow productivity. In 1996 Brisbane and Chesnais found that there was a negative correlation between leaness and sow longevity. So if we are going to select females for a longer productive life, we will have to give up some leaness, and select for a little more backfat.

It is well known that a sow pulls on her body reserves to produce milk for her piglets, so it makes sense that sows with a little more fat reserves can produce milk more abundantly. This ability will help her to be selected to stay in the sow herd for a longer period of time, due to the fact that she can raise a lot of pigs!

The March 15, 2005 National Hog Farmer ran an article call the “Gold Standard of Life time Productivity”. In it they talk about a farm that led PigCHAMP’s category call “Pigs Weaned/ Lifetime Female”. The PigCHAMP 2003 average was 32.75 pigs weaned/lifetime female, the farm called “Steamboat Pork” averaged 52 pigs weaned /lifetime female! That’s 20 pigs more weaned per female in her lifetime than the PigCHAMP average! How did they do it? Let’s take a look.

The manager, Kevin Portner, said that he never culled on body condition, and that he did not cull on performance on the first two parities. Portner was dedicated to feeding both over- conditioned, and under-conditioned sows in a way to bring them back to a good body condition score. Portner was committed to getting the most out of his sow herd! 

Not only does sow longevity look good for us when it comes to Animal Welfare, but from what I have read it seems to make a lot of financial sense. I think that we can get excited about getting more production out of our sows! I think that we should commit too feeding sows in a manner that optimizes their body condition. Yes, it takes more work, but my experience has been that the best milking sows are often the ones that loose the most body mass during lactation. Let’s find a way to keep these high milking sows in our herds! Let’s devote the time and the feed needed to build these sows back up. Let’s also not cull on performance on the first two litters of a sow!

Stalder, K.J. and T.Serenius. July 15, 2004. “Sow Longevity Scrutinized” National Hog Farmer.

Bates, R. Michigan State University June 08, 2011. “Sow Longevity Can Reduce Cost of Production”.

Vansickle, J. January 15, 2009. “Track Age, Weight to Boost Sow Lifetime Performance” National Hog Farmer.

Neutkens, D. March 15, 2005. “The Gold Standard of Lifetime Productivity” National Hog Farmer.

Brisbane, J.R. and J.P. Chesnais. 1996. “Relationship Between Backfat and Sow Longevity in Canadian Yorkshire and Landrace Pigs”. Proc. 1996 NSIF Annual Meeting.