Uterine Insemination with a Standard AI Dose in a Sow Pool System

Abstract

The effect of uterine AI with a standard dose of spermatozoa on fertility of the sow was studied in a field trial. The trial involved a sow pool system with 440 sows using AI as the primary method of breeding. Sows were twice a day checked for oestrus symptoms by back pressure test in front of a boar on days 3-6 after weaning. When in standing heat, sows were randomly allocated into either a uterine insemination group (UTER, n = 157) or standard AI group (CONT, n = 169) and bred accordingly using 3 billion spermatozoa in 80 ml of extender. In both treatment groups, insemination was repeated once if the sow was still receptive 24 h later. Using pregnancy (farrowed or not) and live-born litter size as the outcome variables, a logistic and linear regression approach, respectively, was taken to study the effect of the following factors: treatment (UTER vs CONT), AI operator, breed, satellite herd preceding weaning, parity, weaning-to-oestrus interval and length of lactation. Overall, live-born litter size was 11.3 +/- 2.9, repeat breeding rate 4.2% and farrowing rate 91.2%. In the UTER group, 93.6% of inseminated sows farrowed, whereas farrowing rate for the CONT group was 88.8% (p = 0.13). Intrauterine insemination with a standard AI dose did not result in a significant improvement in the live-born litter size (11.5 +/- 2.8 for the UTER and 11.1 +/- 3.0 for the CONT sows, respectively, p = 0.13). However, the preceding satellite herd had a highly significant effect on the live-born litter size (12.4 +/- 2.6; 11.1 +/- 2.9; 10.8 +/- 2.9 and 10.9 +/- 2.9 for the four satellite herds, p < 0.01). We conclude that uterine insemination did not have a significant effect on live-born litter size and farrowing rate and we also conclude that satellite herd appears to have a major effect on fertility in a sow pool system.

Artificial insemination in pigs today

“…Furthermore, farrowing rate and litter size, although reduced with 1 billion sperm, still achieved an 84% farrowing rate and total born litter size of 13.9 pigs [133]. However, the intrauterine method of insemination itself does not improve fertility when higher numbers of sperm (3 billion) are used [138]. Although some studies have shown differences in farrowing rate and litter size with less than 1 billion sperm [139], others report good fertility with only 0.5 billion sperm if insemination occurred within the 24-hour period before ovulation [140].…”

Improved farrowing rate using intrauterine insemination in sows

“…Other work (15) established that the farrowing rate did not differ between CAI using 3.5 x 10 9 spermatozoa in 100 ml and IUI using 2, 1, or 0.5 x 10 9 spermatozoa in 50 ml. Peltoniemi et al (16) concluded that uterine insemination did not have a significant effect on live piglets/litter and farrowing rate. The results from those studies do not necessarily reflect the data from similar procedures on other farms.…”

Developments of reproductive management and biotechnology in the pig

“…Therefore, deposition of semen in the uterus may be considered more of a physiological method than using the caudal portion of the cervix as the primary site of semen deposition. Generally speaking, intrauterine insemination (post-cervical, semen deposited into the uterine base) and deep intrauterine (semen deposited into uterine horn) have been practiced to allow for a reduction of sperm number per dose, improved fertility or both (Watson and Behan, 2002;Martinez et al, 2002;Peltoniemi et al, 2009). A similar technique was developed to allow transcervical ET (Martinez et al, 2004).…”