The Suddy Sow

30 pigs / sow / year – Impacts on the Sow

Since the early 1990s, the application of genetic selection for litter size has led to an increase of up to 3.5 pigs per litter at dam line nucleus level, with the largest improvements shown in the French and Danish breeding programs. This has translated into the potential for a total litter size born of 15 or more piglets, providing the possibility for commercial producers to wean more than 30...

Effects of sow, boar, and semen traits on sow reproduction

Sow body composition and its associations with reproductive and litter growth performance of the primiparous sow

The complex of desirable maternal traits includes litter size, mothering ability and milk production, combined with aspects of piglet viability or survival and sow rebreeding performance. There are two major contradictory elements within this trait complex. Firstly, larger litters will be, on average, lighter at birth, and result in an extended duration of farrowing. These characteristics may a...

Diet and milk secretion in the sow.

Information on the effect of diet on milk secretion in the sow is limited. Sow’s milk lacks the commercial interest of cow’s milk, and experimental studies of milk secretion are inherently more difficult to conduct in the sow than in the cow. The sow does not voluntarily eject milk in response to stimuli other than those provided by the suckling pig, and manual or mechanical removal of milk fro...

Leucine Requirement of the Lactating Sow 1

Two trials were conducted to estimate the leucine requirement of sows during a 21-day lactation. In trial 1, hominy feed, geletin, corn sugar, vitamins, minerals and indispensable amino acids were used to formulate a diet containing adequate levels of all essential nutrients except leucine. L-leucine was added to this mixture to produce five diets containing: .44 (basal), .64, .84, 1.04 and 1.2...