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Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan


Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.

Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:



Author(s): Zhang, Jenny H. and Roger R. Hacker
Publication Date: January 1, 2002
Reference: Manitoba Pork Council, University of Guelph
Country: Canada

Summary:

Mortality in the first day of life of newborn piglets is often excessive because of asphyxia and cold stress. Even when weak piglets survive through day one of life, many die on day two or three because they are either unable to suckle and/or are crushed during this energy deficient period. For simulating practical farm conditions, this experiment was designed to observe the effects of administering energy and immunity products along with supplemental oxygen and heat to reduce mortality during the first seven days of life. The results from this experiment confirm that heat or oxygen can save small piglets, piglet daily mortality can meet and exceed the less than 1% target by using oxygen inhalation and oxygen inhalation by newborn piglets is the most effective means for improving piglet survival. Administered colostrum also improved piglet survival and can be very effective when combined with oxygen or heat to reduce mortality between days two and seven. However, oxygen administration needs to be done within a short period after birth and thus may put a time burden on the staff within the farrowing unit. This study suggest that an additional heat lamp positioned at the rear of the sow during farrowing and supplemental colostrum on day one are a very practical and economic means for saving small piglets on all Canadian pork producing units, especially where large litter sizes are prevalent and light piglets are common.

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