Clyde Kirkbride South Dakota State University

Publish Date: June 3, 2006

Some reproductive failure occurs in all swine breeding operations, but for practical purposes reproductive failure is regarded significant only when production levels fall below the expected norm. These norms may vary from operation to operation and are based on such things as percentage of animals cycling, conception and farrowing rates, average litter size and number of pigs produced per sow per year (Table 1). The detection of moderate rates of subfertility depends upon the observational ability of the caretaker, regular recording of reproductive events and analysis of reproductive records.