Objective: The information about risk factors for a high stillbirth rate in piglets is inadequate. Therefore, this study was conducted to determine important risk factors for an extremely high stillbirth rate in a commercial pig farm in Vietnam.
Materials and Methods: This study included 628 piglets and 45 Landrace × Yorkshire sows. Data including parity number, gestation length (GL), litter size (LS), piglet’s gender, stillbirth, birth order, birth interval (BI), cumulative farrowing duration (CFD), birth weight (BW), crown-rump length (CRL), body mass index, and ponderal index (PI) were collected. To deal with hierarchical data where several piglets might be born from a sow, Generalized Linear Mixed Models (GLMMs) were used to examine the association between stillbirth and investigated risk factors.
Results: The stillbirth rate was 14.3%, and the incidence of stillbirth at the litter level was 68.9%. The final multivariate GLMM selected eight factors, including CFD, BI, CRL, BW, PI, GL, LS, and parity, as significant risk factors for stillbirth in the piglet. CFD >90 min, BI > 30 min, CRL
Key words: Birth weight; farrowing duration; gestation length; litter size; parity; stillborn piglets
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