Evaluación de la eficiencia reproductiva y productiva en ganado porcino y su repercusión económica a nivel de campo

Resumen

In today's livestock production, farms work as hermetic centers divided into different stages with different levels of relevance but sharing common problems. The study of the three main points that we have considered key points in this doctoral dissertation for the basic operation of an animal husbandry: low birth weight, fertility failures and seminal quality, has allowed us to have a global vision of the importance, both at production and economic level. The main goal of the first study was the analysis, under typical field conditions of the Spanish swine production system, of the effect caused by the weight of the piglet at birth on the production results and its consequence at an economic level in the different stages of production, paying special attention to the losses in lactation during the first days of life. A total of 353 animals were selected, ranging in weight from 0.5 kg to 1.2 kg (grouped in 5 categories), without differentiation by sex. It was shown that the three groups of animals with birth weights between 0.5 kg and 0.89 kg had higher mortality rates and lower growth rates in all production phases than animals with higher birth weights. This caused that piglet production costs and kg per pig were higher than the reference values. Regarding the second study, the main objective was to know the effect of the application of cloprostenol 24 hours postpartum on the reproductive parameters of the treated animals, measured in terms of weaning/insemination interval (days), gestation rate (%) and duration of gestation (days), abortion rate (%), farrowing rate (%) and size of litter of piglets in the following cycle, recording the number of piglets born alive (PBA), piglets stillbirth (PS) and total born piglets (TBP). The study was carried out in a farm of 680 reproductive sows, where 448 productive sows of cycles 1-7 were selected (233 Cloprostenol group sows and 215 control group sows). Sows in the experimental group were given an intramuscular injection of 2 ml cloprostenol sodium (87 μg/ml) (175 μg/animal) (Planate ®, MSD Animal Health, Salamanca, Spain) 24 hours postpartum, while those in the control group received no treatment. The results and conclusion of this chapter is that the injection of cloprostenol after farrowing in sows with an average lactation of 27 days allows an improvement in the reproductive parameters of a farm by reducing non-productive days and improving fertility rate in the following production cycle. These positive effects are more evident in animals with high parity. Finally, in the third study, the objective was to evaluate the possible effect on the reproductive parameters of Iberian sows inseminated with seminal doses from Duroc boars to which a photo-stimulation treatment had been applied. A total of 152 seminal samples from 38 Duroc boars between 10 and 45 months of age were used. Two studies were conducted on two different farms (A and B). As a conclusion, the application of photo stimulation with LED light in seminal doses of Duroc boars used for artificial insemination of Iberian sows does not improve reproductive parameters under commercial conditions. Possible improvements in litter size of the Iberian sow should be related more to the genetic improvement of the sows than to the improvement of seminal parameters and artificial insemination conditions, which are optimized.