A longitudinal study of sows and boars raised by smallholder farmers in the Philippines

We conducted a longitudinal study to obtain baseline information about the health and productivity of sows and boars raised by smallholder-pig raisers in the Philippines, and test constraints and opportunities to smallholder-sow production that had been identified previously in a cross-sectional study [More, S.J., Lee, J.-A.L.M., Lañada, E.B., Taveros, A.A., Cotiw-an, B.S., 1999. Weight-for-age of growing pigs raised by smallholder farmers in the Philippines. Prev. Vet. Med. 41, 151-169]. Over 12-18 months, we collected data during monthly on-farm visits about 213 sows raised in 119 herds at 2 sites and 32 boars in 31 herds at 1 site. Sow reproductive performance was low and boars were used only infrequently (an average of 0.9 services/month). Using repeated-measure analyses, we identified sow nutrition and piglet care (such as provision of creep feed and unrestricted access to the sow) as important husbandry issues associated with increased sow productivity.