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The goal of this study was to characterize the fecal microbiota profiles of gestating sows, along with the fecal microbiota and milk fatty acid contents of lactating sows and their correlations with reproductive performance at different parities. The results showed that the microbiota of third parity gestating sows contained a greater abundance of Prevotella compared to the other two parity groups, while lactating sows exhibiting higher reproductive performance at fifth parity exhibited a greater abundance of Lactobacillus species. The lactating sows with higher reproductive performance also exhibited higher total monounsaturated fatty acid (MUFA) and higher total polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) levels relative to sows with lower reproductive performance at all three analyzed parities, especially sows at fifth parity produced the lowest total saturated fatty acid (SFA) levels, and showed the highest C18:1n9c and C18:2n6c concentrations. In correlational analyses, the abundance of Oligella , Lactobacillus , and Corynebacterium was highly positively correlated with C18:1n9c, C18:2n6c, and C20:4n6. Overall, these results provide a rational basis for efforts to improve sow reproductive performance through the provision of precisely regulated nutrition. Key points • Clear differences in the fecal microbiota were evident between sows of different parities. • Lactating sows with high reproductive performance showed distinct milk fatty acid profiles.

The aim of this study was to analyze the effect of season and number of parity on the reproductive performance of sows kept on a commercial farm. To achieve this objective, 800 nrs productive parent sows and a total of 958 parities were analyzed. The results show that sow’s breeding season had a significant effect on the weaning-to-oestrus interval, the farrowing rate, the litter size and weaning piglets with positive results during autumn, winter and spring seasons. The number of parity has a significant effect on the weaning-to-oestrus interval, litter size and weaning piglets with acceptable values in sows with more farrowing. The results of this study on a pig farm with analysis which highlights the risk factors associated with reproductive performance of sows, could be used to improve sow farm practices.

Colostrum plays an essential role in ensuring the survival, growth and health of piglets by providing energy, nutrients, immunoglobulins, growth factors and many other bioactive components and cells. Both colostrum yield and composition are highly variable among sows, yet mechanisms and factors that regulate colostrogenesis are not fully known. Unlike sow milk yield, sow colostrum yield is not highly determined by litter size and suckling intensity but is largely driven by sow-related factors. Colostrum synthesis is under hormonal control, with prolactin and progesterone concentrations prepartum having, respectively, positive and negative influences on colostrum yield. Less is known about the endocrine control of the end of colostrogenesis in swine, which is characterized by the closure of tight junctions in the mammary epithelium and the cessation of transfer of immunoglobulin G (IgG) into lacteal secretions. Recent studies indicate that exogenous hormones may influence colostrogenesis. Inducing parturition by injecting prostaglandin F2α on day 114 of gestation in combination with an oxytocin-like molecule reduced colostrum yield, and injection of prostaglandin F2α alone either reduced colostrum yield or had no effect. Injecting a supraphysiological dose of oxytocin to sows in the early postpartum period delayed the tightening of mammary tight junctions, thereby prolonging the colostral phase and increasing concentrations of IGF-I and IgG and IgA in early milk. The development of strategies to improve colostrum composition in swine through maternal feeding has been largely explored but very few attempts were made to increase colostrum yield. This is most likely because of the difficulty in measuring colostrum yield in swine. The fatty acid content of colostrum greatly depends on the amount of lipids provided in the sow diet during late gestation, whereas the fatty acid profile is largely influenced by the type of lipid being fed to the pregnant sow. Moreover, various ingredients that presumably have immuno-modulating effects (such as fish oil, prebiotics and probiotics) increased concentrations of IgG, IgA and/or IgM in sow colostrum when they were provided during the last weeks of gestation. Finally, there is some evidence that sow nutrition during late gestation may influence colostrum yield but this clearly warrants more research. This review emphasizes that although progress has been made in understanding the control of colostrogenesis in swine, and that strategies exist to manipulate fat and immunoglobulin contents of colostrum, ways to increase colostrum yield are still lacking.

The rearing of large litters from hyperprolific sows is a characteristic of modern genotypes. However, these sows have body and reproductive characteristics that differentiate them from the genotypes of the past decades, making it necessary to adopt different management strategies. This review describes the main care and challenges associated with the hyperprolificity of sows during the period in which replacement gilts are selected, along with gestation, parturition, lactation, and the weaning-estrus interval. It describes the challenges that these sows’ piglets will face during the lactation period and includes some strategies adopted to develop these surplus piglets. In addition, it identifies areas where more research is needed to understand the reproductive management of modern genotypes.

Forty-two sows were used to determine the effects of adding a Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation product (SCFP) to the gestation and lactation diets on the performance of sows and their progeny. At 5 d before breeding, sows were allotted to 2 dietary treatments representing 1) sows fed a diet with 12.0 g of fermentation product/d through gestation and 15.0 g of fermentation product/d through lactation (SCFP treatment, n = 22), and 2) sows fed a diet with equal amounts of a mixture of corn and soybean meal instead of the SCFP (CON treatment, n = 20). Sow BW and backfat thickness were recorded. Blood was collected from sows, as well as piglets, for the measurement of cell numbers, plasma urea nitrogen (PUN), and IgG. Fecal samples from d 7 to 9 of lactation were collected to determine apparent total tract nutrient digestibility. The composition of colostrum and milk was also measured. No difference (P > 0.10) in reproductive performance was observed between treatments. However, sows in the SCFP treatment tended to have increased total litter weaning weight (P = 0.068) and litter BW gain (P = 0.084) compared with sows in the CON treatment. Neutrophil count was decreased (P < 0.05) by adding the fermentation product on d 110 of gestation and d 17 of lactation, whereas a decreased (P < 0.05) white blood cell count was observed only on d 110 of gestation. Concentration of PUN tended to be greater (P = 0.069) for sows in the CON treatment compared with sows in the SCFP treatment on d 110 of gestation. Apparent total tract nutrient digestibility values of ash, CP, DM, and ether extract were not affected (P > 0.10) by adding the fermentation product. Protein and fat contents in colostrum and milk did not differ (P > 0.10) between treatments. Colostrum from sows in the SCFP treatment contained a greater (P < 0.05) amount of ash than colostrum from sows in the CON treatment. Immunoglobulin G measured in the colostrum, milk, and plasma of piglets did not differ (P > 0.10) between sows in the CON and SCFP treatments. This study indicates that adding the SCFP in the gestation and lactation diets has the potential to 1) improve litter BW gain during lactation, possibly by improving maternal protein utilization, as shown in a tendency to reduce PUN; 2) improve the maternal health status, as shown by the reduced neutrophil cell count; and 3) increase milk production, as shown in a tendency to improve litter BW gain without affecting nutrient composition of the colostrum and milk.

The flow cytometry method is used in many fields, not only scientific, but also clinical. In science, flow cytometry is used in immunology, molecular biology, microbiology or plant biology. In medicine, has its use, in the diagnosis of tumours, in reproductive and prenatal diagnosis, in transplants or in haematology. In our experimental work, we used this method to analyse colostrum and milk of sows. The aim of this study was to determine the number of somatic cells, the number of leukocytes and the number of T-lymphocytes. Colostrum samples were collected within 24 hours of delivery and then milk samples were collected at weekly intervals during 3 weeks. Statistical analysis revealed significant differences in the number of leukocytes (CD45+) in colostrum and milk. The most significant difference was noted between colostrum and milk in weeks 2 and 3 of the experiment (P < 0.0001), with the highest values found in colostrum. On the other hand, we found that the levels of helper T-cells (CD4+) and cytotoxic T-cells (CD8+) gradually increased over time (P > 0.05), with the highest values observed in the third week after farrowing. We can conclude that flow cytometry can be successfully used for the examination of somatic cells in sows’ milk.

Accurate estrus detection and optimal insemination timing are crucial for improving sow productivity and enhancing farm profitability in intensive pig farming. However, sows’ estrus typically lasts only 48.4 ± 1.0 h, and interference from false estrus further complicates detection. This study proposes an enhanced YOLOv8 model, Integrated Convolution and Attention Enhancement (ICAE), for vulvar detection to identify the estrus stages. This model innovatively divides estrus into three phases (pre-estrus, estrus, and post-estrus) and distinguishes five different estrus states, including pseudo-estrus. ICAE-YOLO integrates the Convolution and Attention Fusion Module (CAFM) and Dual Dynamic Token Mixing (DDTM) for improved feature extraction, Dilation-wise Residual (DWR) for expanding the receptive field, and Focaler-Intersection over Union (Focaler-IoU) for boosting the performance across various detection tasks. To validate the model, it was trained and tested on a dataset of 6402 sow estrus images and compared with YOLOv8n, YOLOv5n, YOLOv7tiny, YOLOv9t, YOLOv10n, YOLOv11n, and the Faster R-CNN. The results show that ICAE-YOLO achieves an mAP of 93.4%, an F1-Score of 92.0%, GFLOPs of 8.0, and a model size of 4.97 M, reaching the highest recognition accuracy among the compared models, while maintaining a good balance between model size and performance. This model enables accurate, real-time estrus monitoring in complex, all-weather farming environments, providing a foundation for automated estrus detection in intensive pig farming.

This study evaluated the effect of feeding level and protein content in feed in first- and second-parity sows during the first month of gestation on sow BW recovery, farrowing rate, and litter size during the first month of gestation. From d 3 to 32 after the first insemination, sows were fed either 2.5 kg/d of a standard gestation diet (control, n = 49), 3.25 kg/d (+30%) of a standard gestation diet (plus feed, n = 47), or 2.5 kg/d of a gestation diet with 30% greater ileal digestible AA (plus protein, n = 49). Feed intake during the experimental period was 29% greater for sows in the plus feed group compared with those in the control and plus protein groups (93 vs. 72 kg, P < 0.05). Sows in the plus feed group gained 10 kg more BW during the experimental period compared with those in the control and plus protein groups (24.2 ± 1.2 vs. 15.5 ± 1.2 and 16.9 ± 1.2 kg, respectively, P < 0.001). Backfat gain and loin muscle depth gain were not affected by treatment (P = 0.56 and P = 0.37, respectively). Farrowing rate was smaller, although not significantly, for sows in the plus feed group compared with those in the control and plus protein groups (76.6% vs. 89.8 and 89.8%, respectively, P = 0.16). Litter size, however, was larger for sows in the plus feed group (15.2 ± 0.5 total born) compared with those in the control and plus protein groups (13.2 ± 0.4 and 13.6 ± 0.4 total born, respectively, P = 0.006). Piglet birth weight was not different among treatments (P = 0.65). For both first- and second-parity sows, the plus feed treatment showed similar effects on BW gain, farrowing rate, and litter size. In conclusion, an increased feed intake (+30%) during the first month of gestation improved sow BW recovery and increased litter size, but did not significantly affect farrowing rate in the subsequent parity. Feeding a 30% greater level of ileal digestible AA during the same period did not improve sow recovery or reproductive performance in the subsequent parity.

Temporary confinement during parturition and early postpartum may provide an intermediary step preceding loose housing that offers improvement in sow and piglet welfare. Three experiments were conducted to investigate the implications of replacing farrowing crates (FCs) with an alternative housing system from 3 days postpartum until weaning. In each experiment sows farrowed in FCs and were randomly allocated at day 3 of lactation to either a FC or a pen with increased floor space (lactation pen (LP)) until weaning. In experiment 1, piglet growth and sow and piglet skin injuries were recorded for 32 sows and 128 focal piglets in these litters. Behaviour around nursing and piglet behavioural time budgets were also recorded for 24 of these litters (96 focal piglets for time budgets). In experiment 2, measures of skin injury and behavioural time budgets were conducted on 28 sows and 112 focal piglets. The behavioural response of sows to piglet vocalisation (maternal responsiveness test (MRT)) was also assessed. In experiment 3, piglet mortality from day 3 of lactation until weaning was recorded in 672 litters over 12 months. While housing did not affect piglet weight gain in experiment 1, or piglet skin injuries in experiments 1 or 2, sows in both experiments sustained more injuries in LP than FC (experiment 1, 2.9 v. 1.4; experiment 2, 2.5 v. 0.8 lesions/sow; P<0.05). Sow–piglet interactions were more frequent in LP than FC at days 11 and 18 postpartum in both experiment 1 (day 11, 1.4% v. 1.2%; day 18, 1.7% v. 1.0% of observations; P=0.05) and 2 (day 11, 1.0% v. 0.3%; and at day 18 were 1.0% v. 0.6% of observations; P<0.01), and LP sows were more responsive in the MRT in experiment 2 (2 v. 0 median number of tests in which sows react, P<0.01). In experiment 1 piglets played more (0.7% v. 0.3% of observations, P=0.05) and manipulated others less (0.3% v. 0.7% of observations, P=0.04) in LP, but more piglets missed nursing bouts (0.2 v. 0.1 piglets/bout, P<0.01) compared with FC. There was no effect of housing on piglet mortality from day 3 of lactation until weaning in experiment 3 (0.63 and 0.64 deaths/litter for LP and FC, respectively, P>0.05). Thus, housing sows and litters in LP from day 3 of lactation minimises piglet mortality while improving maternal behaviour in sows and social behaviour in piglets.