Italian Journal of Animal Science (Jan 2010)

Influence of housing systems on stillbirth and mortality rate in preweaning pigs farrowed by different gilt breeds

  • Wiebke Wellbrock,
  • Zvonimir Steiner,
  • Vedran Poljak,
  • Željko Pavičić,
  • Bela Njari,
  • Pero Mijić,
  • Vladimir Margeta,
  • Vesna Dobranić,
  • Mirjana Baban,
  • Boris Antunović

DOI
https://doi.org/10.4081/ijas.2009.s3.193
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 8, no. 3s
pp. 193 – 195

Abstract

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The aim of this paper was to investigate the influence of housing systems on stillbirth and mortality rate in preweaning pigs farrowed by different gilt breeds. The investigation included first farrowings of 225 Large White (LW) gilts, 297 Swedish Landrace (SL) gilts and 260 crossbreed gilts (LWxSL) in the period of five years. Despite of positive influence of straw through decreased number of stillborn pigs, especially in LW gilts, in further process of production until weaning, less appropriate microclimatic conditions developed in farrowing houses with straw, especially if accompanied with poor ventilation, can result with higher number of perished pigs and lower number of weaned pigs. Most sensible to unsuitable microclimatic conditions in straw bedded farrowing houses, according to the number of perished pigs before weaning, were the pigs from SL gilts, while the pigs from crossbreed gilts LWxSL were the most resistant. These results suggest that adding straw requires special attention on influence of such production on microclimate conditions in pigs’ biozone in order to maintain its initial benefits in the time of farrowing through the whole preweaning period, especially in pure breeds of gilts.

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