Growth rates and reproductive performance in indigenous pigs at Mashare Agricultural Development Institute

Abstract

Abstract provided by author

The study was carried out to estimate the growth rate and reproductive performance in indigenous pigs at the Mashare Agricultural Development Institute (MADI) by analyzing the collected data. For the duration of eight years, from 1997 - 2005, the study was done on 8 indigenous sows, 3 boars and 241 indigenous piglets at MADI. The gestation period is one reproductive performance trait estimated in the indigenous pigs at MADI and was found to be 113.7 ± .9 days. The average litter size was 7.5 ± .14 with a variation in sex, season of birth and year of birth. The birth weight with the average of 1.21 ± .04 kg was affected by the litter size and the dam (P .05). The dam, Parity, number born alive and the weaning age (P .05) arc the factors influencing the weaning weight of the mean of 16.7 ± .6 kg at the average weaning age of 10 ± .2 weeks old. The on-test weight was found to be influenced by the year of birth, dam and the parity (P .05) while the off-test weight was influenced by the season of birth, dam and the parity (P .05). For the growth rate performance, the preweaning weight average daily gain had a mean of. 19 ± .0 kg/ day. The preweaning was influenced by the dam and the parity (P .05) while the post weaning average daily gain with a mean of .35 ± .02 kg / day was influenced by the season of birth, dam, parity and the weaning age (P .05). This study was conducted to estimate the growth rate and reproductive performance and determine the factors affecting these traits