Abstract
Few studies have investigated risk factors for dystocia in swine, although this birthing abnormality can compromise welfare of both sows and piglets by increasing stillbirth rate and decreasing sow productivity. This study aimed to determine risk factors associated with dystocia at piglet level in cloprostenol-induced farrowings. A dystocia event was recorded when a birth interval exceeded 45 or when manual extraction was applied. Data were collected from 898 piglets born from 77 Landrace Yorkshire crossbred sows, which were induced for farrowing on day 114 of gestation. Generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs) were used to evaluate the association between dystocia and parity, gestation length, litter size, relative birth order (RBO (%) 100 birth order/litter size), birth weight, crown rump length, body mass index, ponderal index, piglet's sex, use of oxytocin, and stillbirth. Sows nested in farrowing batches were fitted as random factors in GLMMs. Incidence of dystocia at piglet and farrowing levels was 11.0 % and 75.3 %, respectively. The final multivariate model explained 20.1 % variation of dystocia. RBO had a quadratic effect on dystocia in which incidence of dystocia decreased from RBO 40 % to RBO 60 %–70 %, and then increased to the end of parturition. Piglets with birth weight 1700 and stillborn piglets had higher odds of dystocia in comparison with piglets with a birth weight of 900–1700 (OR 2.63; 95 % CI 1.66–4.18) and live-born piglets (OR 2.62; 95 % CI 1.12–6.15), respectively. This study indicates that dystocia is very common in cloprostenol-induced farrowings and suggests that the last one-third of parturitions is the most important stage to be supervised, and selection for homogenous litters and moderate high birth weight may reduce the rate of dystocia.
Highlights
Selection of large litter size in recent decades has resulted in increased farrowing duration, which compromises the welfare of both sows and piglets by increasing dystocia rate (Nam and Sukon, 2021b) and stillbirth rate (Mota-Rojas et al, 2012; Nam and Sukon, 2020b, 2021a)
Piglets born with dystocia had smaller litter size, heavier birth weight, longer crown rump length, and increased cumulative farrowing duration
Body mass index (BMI) and ponderal index (PI) were not different between piglets born with and those born without dystocia (P > 0.05) (Table 1)
Summary
During the farrowing process sows are in pain and in distress (Mainau et al, 2016; Navarro and Mainau, 2020). Selection of large litter size in recent decades has resulted in increased farrowing duration (van Dijk et al, 2005; Nam and Sukon, 2020a), which compromises the welfare of both sows and piglets by increasing dystocia rate (Nam and Sukon, 2021b) and stillbirth rate (Mota-Rojas et al, 2012; Nam and Sukon, 2020b, 2021a). Recent studies defining dystocia as an birth interval of more than 30–60 min have provided evidence that dystocia rate at farrowing level varies between 11.0 % and 73.6 % (Boonraungrod et al, 2018; Oliveira et al, 2020). Prolonged farrowing duration and birth interval increase stillbirth rate (Baxter et al, 2008, 2009; Nam and Sukon, 2020b) and decrease viability and preweaning survivability (Edwards and Baxter, 2015).
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