Abgangsursachen und ihr Einfluss auf die Lebensleistung bei Sauen der Rassen Deutsches Edelschwein, Deutsche Landrasse und Pietrain
Abstract. Title of the paper: Culling reasons and their effect on lifetime productivity in sows of the breeds German Large White, German Landrace and Pietrain
Culling reasons in sows were analysed with respect to their importance for the different times of removal and their effects on longevity, length of productive life, number of piglets born alive and number of weaned piglets in the whole life of a sow. The investigation was based on records of 655 Large White (DE) sows, 13,005 German Landrace (DL) sows and 6,473 Pietrain (PI) sows born between1989 and 1994 and culled until 2002. In all the three breeds investigated, removal was highest due to fertility with 15 % (DE and PI) and 20 % (DL) and next highest due to diseases with 11 to 13 %. In PI sows, culling for low fattening performance and low efficiency in carcass yield ranked third (8 %), while removal for old age (9 and 10 %, respectively) was more important in DE and DL sows. The main timespan for the different culling reasons were after the fourth farrowing due to infertility, between the 2nd and 5th farrowing due to low fattening performance and low efficiency in carcass yield, after the first farrowing due to reproduction problems and up to 4th farrowing due to diseases, while culling due to old age did not occur before the 5th farrowing. Heritabilities of reasons for removal were in the range of h2 = 0.04–0.08 due to poor fertility, h2 = 0.01–0.09 due to low fattening performance and low efficiency in carcass yield, h2 = 0.02 due to reproductive problems, between h2 = 0.01 and h2 = 0.05 due to diseases and between h2 = 0.05 and h2 = 0.16 due to miscellaneous reasons.
