Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

There are different ways to keep pigs for meat production and legislation differ for example between Sweden and the rest of Europe. Swedish sows are not allowed to be confined in a farrowing crate and the age at weaning for piglets in Sweden is minimum 4 weeks and 3 weeks according EUs legislation.

Many piglets die before weaning and the Swedish statistics on mean piglet mortality from 2016 is 17,1 %. This is higher than studies made in Norway, England and Switzerland. A study made in Sweden showed a mortality of 19,5 %. One of the main reasons piglets die is because they become crushed by the sow. Starving, disease and low birth weight are other common reasons. Research also says genetics and litter size decide the mortality, were some sows have very high mortality and some almost no mortality. There are a lot of research of the actions to take in order to decrease mortality. Many of them are management routines; providing the sow with a large amount of straw before farrowing will make her calmer and more observant of the piglets, and a heat lamp will help the piglet maintain body temperature and decrease the risk of hypothermia. By staying close to the sows around farrowing and the days after the caretakers are for example able to help the piglets to the heat lamp and prevent them from getting crushed by the sow.

The purpose of this work was to find out if producers that try to decide piglet causes of death and also takes actions depending on the result have a lower mean mortality. To be able to do that a questionnaire with nine questions was sent out to pig producers on Facebook. In a total 23 participants answered some of the questions and 18 participants answered the whole questionnaire. The mortality ranged between 5-25 % and the mean mortality was 16,4 %. Seven of the participants tries to decide the cause of death and six of these took direct actions depending on the result according to their answers. The mean mortality of these seven was 17,8 %. All participants took more general actions to decrease mortality. Move piglets between litters, let them suckle in shifts and extra milk replacer are common actions for both farms with and without thorough routines. The majority of the participants believe piglet mortality is a problem that need to be solved.

This study did not see that producers with thorough routines have lower mean piglet mortality and the high Swedish mortality is still a problem in need of a solution.