Offspring of hyper prolific sows: Immunity, birthweight, and heterogeneous litters

Oliviero, Claudio

doi:10.1002/mrd.23572

Cited by 12 publications

(12 citation statements)

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“…As a result, sows in most breeding herds worldwide have larger litters than several years ago [ 1 ]. In general, sows with a total number of piglets born per litter (TB) of ≥16 can be regarded as hyperprolific sows [ 2 ]. In practice, many sows can reach such a high litter size in many parity numbers [ 3 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Factors Associated with Farrowing Duration in Hyperprolific Sows in a Free Farrowing System under Tropical Conditions

Adi

Boonprakob

Kirkwood

et al. 2022

Animals

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The ongoing selection for increased litter size has had significant impacts on sow husbandry practice. The present study investigated factors associated with farrowing duration and the proportion of sows that had prolonged farrowing in modern hyperprolific sows kept in a free farrowing system in a tropical environment. Farrowing data from 2493 Landrace x Yorkshire cross-bred sows in a commercial swine herd in Thailand were included in the study. The time of farrowing, parity number, litter size, and the birth status of each piglet were recorded. Farrowing duration was analysed using multiple analyses of variance. Total number of piglets born per litter (TB), parity, and time onset of farrowing were included in the statistical models. On average, TB, piglets born alive, and farrowing duration were 13.7, 12.1, and 221.0 min, respectively. Of these sows, 26.4% had TB ≥ 16 and 21.7% had a prolonged farrowing duration (≥300 min). Farrowing duration was positively correlated with TB (r = 0.141, p < 0.001), percentage of stillborn (SB) piglets per litter (r = 0.259, p < 0.001), percentage of mummified foetuses (MF) per litter (r = 0.049, p = 0.015), piglet birth weight (r = 0.068, p < 0.001), and litter birth weight (r = 0.041, p = 0.043). The proportion of SB per litter was higher and piglet birth weight lower in litters that had ≥16 TB than those with 8–12 TB (p < 0.05). The farrowing duration of sows with parity numbers 5–7 (247.7 ± 5.1 min) and 8–10 (237.1 ± 5.1 min) was longer than that of sows with parity numbers 1 (188.3 ± 5.2 min) and 2–4 (214.3 ± 3.9 min) (p < 0.05). Sows that had started farrowing during working hours had longer farrowing durations (229.3 ± 3.6 min) than those that had started farrowing during non-working hours (217.6 ± 3.4 min, p = 0.017). In multiparous sows, the duration of farrowing was positively correlated with the maximum temperature (r = 0.056, p = 0.012) and the maximum temperature–humidity index (r = 0.059, p = 0.008) in the 7 days before farrowing. The present data confirm that TB, sow parity, and time of onset of farrowing are significant risk factors for a prolonged farrowing.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In practice, many sows can reach such a high litter size in many parity numbers [ 3 ]. Hyperprolific sow genetics have been widely distributed to the swine industry worldwide, including Thailand [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 ]. However, one of the most important problems when using these genetics is the prolonged duration of farrowing [ 5 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Factors Associated with Farrowing Duration in Hyperprolific Sows in a Free Farrowing System under Tropical Conditions

Adi

Boonprakob

Kirkwood

et al. 2022

Animals

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“…Intensive genetic selection has led to hyperprolific sows that give birth to more piglets than the number of functional teats available on the sow [ 12 ]. This increase in litter size has led to more heterogenous litters, with a lower average weight at birth and a higher proportion of ‘light’ piglets born alive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selected Nutrition and Management Strategies in Suckling Pigs to Improve Post-Weaning Outcomes

Arnaud

Gardiner

Lawlor

2023

Animals

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Weaning is a critical period in a pig’s life. Piglets are confronted with abrupt changes to their physical and social environment, as well as management and nutritional changes. Weaning has always been associated with a growth check and is frequently accompanied by post-weaning diarrhoea in piglets. However, rapid increases in litter size in the last decade have increased within-litter piglet weight variation, with piglets now generally lighter at weaning, making the challenges associated with weaning even greater. Many interventions can be employed during the suckling period to ease the weaning transition for piglets. Pre-weaning strategies such as supervised farrowing (assistance with suckling and oxytocin provision), the provision of pain relief to sows around farrowing, split-suckling, early oral supplementation with glucose, bovine colostrum, faecal microbiota transplantation, feed additives and solid and liquid creep feeding (milk and liquid feed) have all been investigated. The objective of these strategies is to stimulate earlier maturation of the digestive tract, improve immunity, reduce latency to the first feed post-weaning and increase early post-weaning feed intake and growth. This review focuses in particular on: (1) pain relief provision to sows around farrowing, (2)split-suckling of piglets, (3) pre-weaning provision of supplementary milk and/or liquid feed, (4) other strategies to stimulate earlier enzyme production (e.g., enzyme supplementation), (5) other nutritional strategies to promote improved gut structure and function (e.g., L-glutamine supplementation), and (6) other strategies to modulate gut microbiota (e.g., probiotics and prebiotics). Correctly implementing these strategies can, not only increase post-weaning growth and reduce mortality, but also maximise lifetime growth in pigs.

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“…Selection for increased litter size for the last three to four decades has led to hyper‐prolific sows, defined by having a higher number of liveborn piglets per litter than the number of functional teats (Farmer & Edwards, 2022; Oliviero, 2022; Rutherford et al, 2013). Although the genetic selection in recent years has been focusing on early piglet survival, that is, the number of live pigs at Day 5, this has still led to further increases in litter size at the DanBred hybrid sow (Nielsen et al, 2013) and subsequently throughout Danish pig production (Hansen, 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Selecting the optimal strategies when using nurse sows for supernumerous piglets

Bruun

Pedersen

Thorup

et al. 2023

Molecular Reproduction Devel

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Hyper‐prolific sows frequently do not have a sufficient number of functional teats for their piglets to nurse which has led to the use of nurse sows to manage these surplus piglets. This review discusses strategies for using nurse sows and factors that influence preweaning survival and weight gain of their litters, as well as those that affect their subsequent rebreeding performance. Rearing piglets using a nurse sow can be as successful as piglets reared with their biological mother and is thus a powerful management tool to decrease preweaning piglet mortality. Selecting a young sow as nurse sow is beneficial for piglet survival; however, piglets nursing first parity sows often have a lower daily weight gain than piglets nursing multiparous sows. A litter of uniform surplus piglets is preferably handled using the two‐step nurse sow strategy. A consequence of nonuniform litters will most likely be an increased mortality and decreased weaning weight among the smallest piglets within a litter. The subsequent fertility of nurse sows is not compromised. There is an increased risk of lactational oestrus when using nurse sows leading to an increased weaning‐to‐oestrus interval; however, litter size in nurse sows is identical or even moderately higher in the subsequent parity compared with nonnurse sows.

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Offspring of hyper prolific sows: Immunity, birthweight, and heterogeneous litters

Cited by 12 publications

References 51 publications

Factors Associated with Farrowing Duration in Hyperprolific Sows in a Free Farrowing System under Tropical Conditions

Factors Associated with Farrowing Duration in Hyperprolific Sows in a Free Farrowing System under Tropical Conditions

Selected Nutrition and Management Strategies in Suckling Pigs to Improve Post-Weaning Outcomes

Selecting the optimal strategies when using nurse sows for supernumerous piglets

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