Published in Scientific Papers. Series "Management, Economic Engineering in Agriculture and rural development", Vol. 23 ISSUE 1
Written by Mykola POVOD, Oleksandr MYKHALKO, Tetyana VERBELCHUK, Bogdan GUTYJ, Valeriy BORSHCHENKO, Vira KOBERNIUK

The article describes the results of studying the interdependence between indicators of reproductive qualities of sows, indicators of growth of pigs, during fattening. In addition, the results of the experiment determined the dependence of the level of fatness of piglets on the term of their suckling period. It was proven that when the duration of lactation is reduced by 7 days, their preservation improves, due to which their number in the nest before weaning increases. At the same time, in the case of premature weaning of piglets, no difference was found with sows with the traditional duration of the suckling period in terms of the total number of piglets born, multifertility, high fertility and litter weight of piglets at birth. While the shorter period of lactation of sows led to a decrease in the growth intensity of piglets in the post-weaning period and to a decrease in the absolute growth and individual weight of piglets and the weight of their nests at weaning. When piglets were weaned earlier from sows, they exhibited lower growth intensity during rearing, consumed relatively less feed, and had poorer payment for feed in the form of gain and consequently lower weight at the end of the rearing period compared to counterparts with a traditional duration of the suckling period. At the same time, no significant difference was found between piglets of the control groups in the parameters of piglet survival and absolute growth. The fattening qualities of pigs did not depend on the length of their suckling period. A 7-day reduction in the lactation period contributed to a reduction in the duration of the reproductive cycle from 150 to 143 days. This made it possible to obtain 0.12 more farrowings from each sow per year and to use each pen for farrowing sows 25.3% more often. What made it possible due to the intensification of the use of farrowing space, the intensification of the use of the sow and the reduction of the feed cost of her maintenance to obtain additional cost savings per sow during the year.

[Read full article] [Citation]