Abstract
An observational retrospective study was done to provide up-to-date information on recent sow removal patterns from 9 breed-wean herds of Midwest USA. The study comprised of sow’s removal reasons and removal types of F1 Landrace x Yorkshire gilts entered in the herds between 1st Jan 2014 and 31st July 2016. Data was extracted from existing database on Dec 2018 and 15% of the sows were still active in the herds hence not included in the study. Descriptive statistics showed that out of the 20,009 removed sows, planned removals comprised of farrowing productivity (FP) 3,523 (17.6%) and old age (OA) 1,785 (8.9%) while unplanned removals consisted of reproductive failure (RF) 7,786 (38.9%), health problems (HP) 2,629 (13.1%), locomotion problems (LP) 1,473 (7.4%) and conformation issues (CI) 1,350 (6.8%).‘Did not conceive’ and “No heat” were observed as the main contributing factors accounting for 37.6% and 32.9% respectively for gilts & sows removed by RF.13.5% of the gilts (Parity 0) were removed from the herds before attaining their first litter of which 64.1% of their removals was due to RF. Removal type consisted of slaughter (S) 85.0%, found dead on the farm (DoF) 10.8% and euthanized (E) 4.2%. The research findings depict an upward trend of sow RF removals in the US swine herds posing a serious concern for US swine producers. Characterization and quantification of sow removals gives a revelation on the deeper intrigues about the vulnerability of the various parity in respect to common causes of RF. This helps swine producers to decisively improve on gilt replacement selection, reproductive efficiency, health and nutrition management all aimed at increasing overall swine productivity and efficiency in management. Swine farmers in the US can now focus their efforts towards curbing unnecessary RF removal within parity specifics.
Highlights
Sow removal comprises of culling and mortality
Unplanned removals depend on management practices since management decisions govern the implementation of sound culling policies which in turn give more control to swine producers over which sows can stay in the herd and which ones should be culled (Sasaki and Koketsu, 2012)
Largest contribution to removal was made by reproductive failure (RF) followed by farrowing productivity (FP), health problems (HP), old age (OA), locomotion problems (LP) and conformation issues (CI). ”Other “(O) was included in the study as an amalgamation of removal reasons that couldn’t be grouped individually due to their fewer entries (Table 1)
Summary
Sow removal comprises of culling and mortality. The reasons for culling in a commercial sow herds have been well documented, and various studies have found out that major reasons are associated with reproductive problems, lameness as well as low levels of productivity Mote et al (2009) and Segura-Correa et al (2011). Unplanned removal includes removal of sows due to reasons such as reproductive failure, lameness and mortality. Unplanned removals depend on management practices since management decisions govern the implementation of sound culling policies which in turn give more control to swine producers over which sows can stay in the herd and which ones should be culled (Sasaki and Koketsu, 2012). Current findings will help identify problems facing the US swine industry and offer insights into overcoming undesirable RF removals in the current swine industry
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