The Effect of the Size of the Litter in Which the Sow Was Born on Her Lifetime Productivity.

Agnieszka Warda,Anna Rekiel,Justyna Więcek,Martyna Batorska,Tadeusz Blicharski,Marcin Sońta

doi:10.3390/ani11061525

Agnieszka Warda, Anna Rekiel + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11061525

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Abstract

Simple SummaryImproving reproductive traits, including increased fertility and prolificacy, is important for efficiency behind production, but difficult to achieve due to the low heritability for those traits, their dependence on the environment, as well as maintenance and nutrition. It is possible to achieve good results in reproduction using various methods of improving the characteristics of pig reproduction, such as breeding work, crossbreeding, selection programmes, optimisation of the rearing environment, and maternal effects. The litter of sow origin is one of the features worth using in practice, as it can have a significant impact on improving the fertility, prolificacy, and reproductive longevity of sows and is therefore a factor analysed in the work presented.Improvement of lowly heritable traits is difficult, efforts must be made to take full advantage of the available information sources to improve them. The objective of the study was to determine the effect of the size of the litter in which the sow was born on her lifetime reproductive performance. Data on 22,683 litters were used to analyse the lifetime reproductive performance of 5623 Polish Large White sows. The sows from small litters (≤9) were on average the oldest at first farrowing, had the shortest herd life, the smallest number of litters, and the smallest sized litters (p ≤ 0.01). A positive relationship was established between the mean number of offspring born per litter and size of the litter in which the sow was born (p ≤ 0.01). For a sow to produce at least seven piglets per 100 days of reproduction, gilts from litters of at least 12 piglets should be selected for breeding.

Highlights

Improving reproductive traits through traditional selection methods is small, as evidenced by the fact that the number of piglets born and reared to 21 days by Polish Large White (PLW) sows over 1963–2019 changed by about 2.0 and 2.2, respectively [1,2]
Reproductive performance was analysed for the size of the litter in which the sow was born; age at first farrowing; age at culling; longevity; number of litters and piglets liveborn to sow during reproductive life; mean number of piglets liveborn per litter; and breeding herd efficiency, which show the number of piglets liveborn to the sow over 100 days of productive life
After three litters were produced and reared, around 50% of the sows remained in the herd, which is consistent with the findings of Tarrés et al [29], whereas after cycle 6 less than 20% of the studied sows remained in Animals 2021, 11, 1525 the herd

Summary

Introduction

Improving reproductive traits through traditional selection methods is small, as evidenced by the fact that the number of piglets born and reared to 21 days by Polish Large White (PLW) sows over 1963–2019 changed by about 2.0 and 2.2, respectively [1,2]. Selection for improved feed conversion has reduced fatness and increased muscling in pigs [4,5] This was beneficial in terms of the carcass quality but had a negative effect on reproductive traits by decreasing fertility parameters, longevity, and lifetime production of the sows [6,7,8]. According to data from 2019, progress in the number of live piglets born per litter since the introduction of the BLUP model for sows PLW was +1.0 [2]

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