A Swine Reproductive Physiologist with Zinpro says boars that originate from small sized litters tend to provide greater reproductive performance. "Boar Management and Nutrition" was among the topics discussed yesterday as part of Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium 2020's first of five weekly sessions, held virtually.
Dr. Mark Wilson, a Swine Reproductive Physiologist with Zinpro Corporation, says the more sperm cells each boar makes, the greater potential there will be to make more profit out of that boar stud or, if you're breeding with natural service, to get better results.
Clip-Dr. Mark Wilson-Zinpro Corporation:
In the wild the boar that becomes the patriarch for a herd will almost always come from a small litter size. It means he got to drink a lot more milk, a lot more nutrition at an early age.
Those piglets that get more colostrum, get more quantity of milk give us the potential to get bigger testicles, much better semen quality and we start off with way more potential with our fertility and to optimise using our boars to even a greater extent that have high genetic potential, particularly their impact on growing and finishing with growth rate and their issue of feed efficiency.
No matter whether they're born in the fall or they're born in the spring, the first thing that we see is testicular area, body size to their body weight as a percentage is way better in our small litter boars.
Source : Farmscape