The Effect of Wet Pad and Forced Ventilation House on the Reproductive Performance of Boar

Abstract

There were two trials involved in the experiment. Trial 1: the trial was conducted on two Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC) pig farms. One was located in the north of Taiwan and the other was located in the south. Both farms had wet pad and forced ventilation (WPFV) and conventional open design (COD) boar and sow houses. There were 12 Duroc boars, age ranging from 12-24 months. Half of them (6 boars) were raised in a WPFV pig house, and the other half were kept in a COD house. Semen was collected at 5-day intervals from May 1 st to the end of October. Sixteen sows (2-8 parity) were served by artificial insemination each week from the beginning of May to the end of Oct. These sows were checked for heat from 18 days to 25 days after insemination. Trial 2: there were four MPFV boar houses involved in the test. Two houses were located in the north of Taiwan, and the other two houses were located in the south. The test was conducted from January 2000 to December 2001. The total number of serviced sows by MPFV-housed boars was 35,105 head and for COD-housed boars 103,065 head. The results showed that the total semen volume, density of sperm, total sperm per ejaculate, sperm motility and morphological abnormality were significantly better (p 0.05). Boars raised in WPFV house had significantly higher sperm motility than boars in COD house during spring (p 0.05). The present experiment shows that WPFV house can improve the reproduction performance of boars. (Asian-Aust. J. Anim. Sci. 2005. Vol 18, No. 1 : 96-101)