An exotic gilt of the Large White Yorkshire (LWY) breed housed in the pig farm of Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University (GADVASU) has given birth to 16 live piglets in the first farrowing. This is a rare incident and a first of its kind with such a large litter size produced by primiparous animals of swine species.
Giriraj Singh, Union cabinet minister of rural development and panchayati raj department lauded the achievement of GADVASU on his Twitter handle and Facebook Page.
The government of India had purchased 237 pigs of three breeds namely Large White Yorkshire (LWY), Landrace and Hampshire for NE states and housed them at government pig breeding farm, Nabha and Hoshiarpur in June 2020.
GADVASU procured 33 pigs of LWY (20 females and 6 males) and seven pigs of landrace breed (4 females and 3 males)in May 2021.
The pigs were fed scientifically formulated maize-soybean based diets along with university made mineral mixture and common salt separately made for growing, breeding and adult animals for proper attainment of growth and body weight prior to mating.
Proper and timely vaccination was followed to prevent infectious diseases like swine fever the pigs were kept comfortably to ensure that they don’t face any stress.
{{/usCountry}}Proper and timely vaccination was followed to prevent infectious diseases like swine fever the pigs were kept comfortably to ensure that they don’t face any stress.
{{/usCountry}}A proper scientific breeding plan was executed to avoid inbreeding and have optimum litter size. A total of 17 piglets were delivered out of which 16 survived.