Successful pig AI requires attention to detail

As the hog industry’s reliance on artificial insemination increases, producers need to pay more attention to details.

A decade ago only five percent of hog producers in North America inseminated their sows and gilts artificially. Today it is 65 percent and the number rises each year.

With more than 25 million doses of semen being used annually in the United States from 20,000 boars in the collection industry, the hog business is truly committed to AI, “but are they doing all they can to ensure maximum farrowing yields?”

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This question was posed by Wayne Singleton, a livestock reproduction researcher and professor at Indiana’s Perdue University, to the Saskatchewan Pork Industry Symposium in Saskatoon Nov. 18.

“In the good old days a 500-sow barn had 25 or 30 boars and it was hard, physical and sometimes dangerous labour to ensure that breeding happened effectively” and without injury to the sow, he said.

“We don’t want to go back. Those old days weren’t all that good.”

Here are details he said producers should monitor.

Semen quality

Semen quality is often more a function of the supplier, unless collection is done on the farm, but this is rarely the case.

Outside of taking care not to put the semen through unnecessary heating and cooling, trusting the supplier is paramount.

“When pregnancy rates suffer we first blame the semen, but first we need to look at other barns, other farms using that semen and check with them. If they are OK then we have to look at our other two factors, technician ability and sow fertility,” said Singleton.

He recommends producers invest in occasional laboratory or veterinarian testing of the semen to confirm quality.

Technician ability

“Good healthy, happy, rested staff that get to go home on time when their shift is over,” are necessary for successful AI, said Singleton. “We can’t expect these people to perform at optimum levels and they are key to process.”

The researcher recommends producers provide thorough training for new staff and that all the workers be well versed on basic female fertility.

He said technicians need to remember, whether they are checking for standing heat or during the insemination process, to “be the boar … do what the boar does.”

Female fertility

“Females must be bred into standing heat. Simple to say, but it takes a lot of work to do this well,” said Singleton.

He provided these suggestions:

Check for standing heat at least one hour after feeding and two hours after being exposed to a boar because a sow can’t remain locked in a standing position for more than 15 minutes.
Check for standing heat daily in sows and twice daily in gilts.

Ensure females are exposed face to face with a boar before, during and after insemination because the female’s reproductive system is stimulated by odours from the boar’s saliva and urine.
Provide stimulation to the female’s back, shoulder, stomach, external reproductive organs and chest to check for heat, and continue stimulation while performing the AI.
Use tools like boar leads and robotic boar movers to minimize the work and keep the boar in place in front of the sow or gilt.
Gilts remain in standing heat for 40 hours on average, while for sows it is 60.
Always check for a cervical lock once the AI wand is in place.

Good quality semen has a 24-hour lifespan once it is inside the cervix, but it needs to be there for eight hours prior to ovulation to get into place to penetrate the ova.
Ova will only live for six to eight hours, so be sure the semen dose is in place ahead of ovulation.
Late insemination or forced insemination is not effective and reduces the number of piglets born. It is better to wait and breed during standing heat. The female’s immune system is only ready to accept the proteins from the semen during that period of estrus.
Technicians who do more than 10 inseminations in a day produce lower conception rates than those who do not.
If there are more than “a couple of bloody catheters in waste tubs then you need to find out why, because it is a problem.”
Don’t move or handle the pregnant females during the 13-18 day period following insemination because this will result in five to eight percent losses in pregnancy.
Early research suggests that traditionally placed doses of three to four billion sperm each are just as effective as one-million-cell doses performed with deep uterine insemination techniques.