The Canadian Swine Breeders Association (CSBA) is still actively involved in the swine pedigree program on behalf of its purebred breeder members across the country, even after 115 years. Purebred boars and gilts are the basis for F1 breeding – selecting the crossbred gilts from matings between Yorkshire and Landrace purebreds. Single-cross sire lines usually come from purebred services as well.

Our Canadian Centre for Swine Improvement in Ottawa has been designated the service provider for CSBA: to manage and administer the Association and to maintain and update its website at www.canswine.ca.

Madelaine Hayeur of Quebec was elected President at the annual meeting on March 30. Alfred Wahl is now AB/BC Director for our sixteen breeder members and is also Executive member for the coming year.

Carcass performance of hogs delivered from Birch Creek Farms to OLYMEL under contract. Hogs in the first two months of this year averaged 61.4 mm lean; with 38% of hogs measuring 60-66 mm lean.

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Roseglen Colony has sold its first two 9^th parity PEAK Summit sows. They had to go to slaughter in spite of having farrowed an average of 14.4 and 14.1 live piglets over the nine lifetime litters, because regular replacement gilts were chasing them out of the herd’s parity profile. Quite good results from Spring Valley Colony sows 3863 and 3754. Sow 3754 had 0.0 stillborn piglets.

A novel system for estrus control has as its basics: (1) isolate gilts from all forms of stimulation (especially boars) until 7-10 days before intended mating; (2) move gilts into a breeding barn at about 26 weeks of age and provide daily, intensive mature boar contact; (3) target mating at approximately 27-28 weeks of age.

Table 1. Effects of frequency of contact with boars on puberty attainment

(* = % of gilts cycling within 2 weeks of commencement of treatments)

Table 2. Ovulation rates in gilts at pubertal or second estrus after starting daily boar contact at 23, 26 or 29 weeks of age

(* = at day 21 of pregnancy)

Table 3. Changes in sow liveweight and fatness in reported UK nutrition experiments

The data suggests strongly that modern gilts have become later maturing and that the best response now occurs when they are 26 weeks old, rather than at 23 week of age. Up to 75% of gilts stimulated at 26 weeks of age were cycling within 10 days. Boar stimulus with boars less than 9 months of age will be less successful than with older boars. Full physical contact between a mature boar and gilts remains essential; twice daily stimulation for 15-20 minutes will be ideal in most herds.

In general, it is believed that an ovulation of at least 13-14 ova in all gilts will not limit the size of the first litter. What is more, ovulation rate shows little relationship with gilt or estrus number – it was, however, positively correlated with gilt liveweight at both 18 and 23 weeks of age. There are also indications that ovulation rate may be higher in those gilts responding quickly to boar stimulation than in slow responders.

It is a new finding that estrus number of the gilt at mating is irrelevant in determining her potential litter size, unless gilt are mated at ages below 28 weeks.

The new data support the concept that faster growing, heavier gilts will increase potential first litter size. The influence of nutrition seems to operate at two levels – one is the flushing effect, in which the performance improves after high-plane feeding given in the 2-3 weeks before mating and the second is an apparent effect on nutrition earlier in the gilt’s life (probably in the period 10-18 weeks of age).

While these findings do not suggest that we should drastically alter our feeding strategy for replacement gilts, they do emphasize the need to ensure gilt feeding is optimized much earlier than has been previously considered important.

Review PEAK of Performance News! Vol 6, No 6 and No 3 for similar information confirmed by Dr. Frank Aherne.

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