Relationship between postnatal piglet mortality, environmental factors and management around farrowing in herds with loose-housed, lactating sows

Abstract

The objective of this study was to investigate management routines and environmental factors influencing postnatal piglet mortality in commercial herds with individually loose-housed sows. Last year production records from 39 herds were used. We gathered information on specific routines as well as environmental factors by visiting every farm once. Herds practising moderate roughage feeding during pregnancy tended to have lower piglet mortality (p=0.06). Use of farrowing rails along all the sides of the pen resulted in lower piglet mortality than when no rails were present (p<0.01). Herds that hardly used any litter in the sow area at the time of farrowing had significantly higher piglet mortality than herds that used a moderate or large amount (p<0.05). Helping the piglets to obtain colostrum immediately after birth also reduced mortality (p<0.05), whereas other routines such as shutting the piglets inside the creep area while feeding the sow did not have any significant effect.

Keywords:

• Piglet mortality
• management
• farrowing environment

Acknowledgements

We gratefully acknowledge Norsvin – the Norwegian Pig Breeding Association, the Norwegian Industrial and Regional Development Fund and the Norwegian Pig Health Service for financing the project, and Jette Wolling Pedersen from the Norwegian Pig Health Service for making all the farm visits and collecting the data.