Death rates for female pigs in the U.S. are rising fast, from a mortality rate of 5.8 percent in 2013 to 15 to 18 percent in 2020 on farms owning more than 125 sows.
What's going on?
The numbers are at least partially linked to a rise in prolapse — the collapse of the animal’s rectum, vagina or uterus — with some farms seeing prolapse causing as many as 25 percent to 50 percent of sow deaths.
What's causing the prolapse?
It appears to be a multifactorial problem linked to using untreated water sources, late gestation bump feeding of thin sows, genetics, vitamin deficiency, mycotoxins in the feed, artificial insemination leading to acceptance of less sound boars and sows, confinement systems used in intensive pig farming which lead to too little exercise, selection for sow fecundity and litter size over all other factors, heat, and even poor farm labor recruitment and hiring.
Pig farmers have every reason to fix this, as dead pigs are a loss of income and a stain on the industry. A one percent reduction in sow mortality is worth anywhere from $25,000 to $30,000 for a 2,500-sow farm. A 10 percent rise in total mortality is a quarter million dollar loss, year on year.
The bottom line may be that the farmers have to think in terms of optimal number rather than maximum return. As Temple Grandin, a professor of animal science at Colorado State University and a consultant on the design of livestock-handling facilities notes, “You have to figure out the optimal number of piglets these sows should have. One thing people have trouble with is asking what is optimal – not maximal, but optimal – when it comes to breeding.”
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