Factors affecting the gestation period of pigs in Nigeria

Abstract

Gestation periods taken from 432 records on purebred Large White, Duroc, Hampshire and their crossbred sows at Fashola Stock Farm in the Oyo State of Nigeria were analysed to determine the effects of some factors on the trait. For Large White, Duroc, Hampshire and the crossbred sows the mean gestation periods were 113.2, 115.1, 114.5 and 112.8 days respectively. Overall least squares mean was 11.2 days with a standard deviation of 9.06 days. Litter size at birth, year of birth and breed x season interaction had very highly significant effects of length of pregnancy. Breed differences were significant (P less than 0.05) whereas parity and season per se did not seem to influence this trait. Effects of boars accounted for some 11.8% of the trait was estimated as 0.47 r - 0.20 while the repeatability coefficient was 0.13. The data indicated a slight negative association between gestation period and litter size at birth.

Genetic parameters estimation and genome molecular marker identification for gestation length in pigs

“…George Charbonneau, a veterinarian, talked about “Keeping Large Litters Alive” and shared the attached two charts at the Shakespeare Swine Seminar ( https://www.nationalhogfarmer.com/business/gestation-length-and-inducing-what-do-we-know ), showing that sows allowed to farrow at day 118 had pigs born at an average weight of 3.7 pounds versus day 113 at 2.9 pounds ( Supplementary Figure S1A ) and indicating that earlier a sow farrows the lower the level of Immunoglobulin G colostrum in the milk for the pigs ( Supplementary Figure S1B ). The gain of GL was negatively correlated with litter size, while was positively correlated with the average pig weight ( Omtvedt et al, 1965 ; Leigh, 1981 ). Selection for prolonged gestation might probably improve piglet survival after birth and piglet growth, while it might result in more stillbirths ( Rydhmer et al, 2008 ).…”

A whole genome scan to detect quantitative trait loci for gestation length and sow maternal ability related traits in a White Duroc × Erhualian F2 resource population

“…The heritability of gestation length in pigs ranges from 0.47 (Leigh, 1981;Hanenberg et al, 2001) to 0.13 (Casellas et al, 2008). The moderate-to-high values of heritability estimated have increased its importance as a potential breeding goal to improve the reproduction efficiency of sow per year (Casellas et al, 2008).…”