Effects of Cold stress on Pigs

Pig breeding is very common in our country, when raising pigs, we need to do a good job in all kinds of management. If it is not well managed, it can easily lead to a variety of stress reactions in pigs, seriously affecting the growth of pigs. One of the more common is heat stress, in addition to heat stress, cold stress will also have a great impact on pigs. So what is the effect of cold stress on pigs? Let's take a look at it with the editor.

1. Reduce production performance

Temperature is very important to the growth of pigs, which will directly affect the free consumption of feed and the use of energy. If the temperature in the pigsty is low and the pig produces cold stress, then the pig needs to consume more nutritional energy to maintain its body temperature. As a result, it will lead to a decrease in the average daily weight gain of pigs, although the food intake has increased, but most of them will be used to maintain their own physiological needs. Moreover, in the low temperature environment, it will accelerate the gastrointestinal peristalsis of pigs, resulting in a short digestion time of surimi in the intestine, reduce the feed utilization rate and increase the ratio of feed to meat.

There has been a professional data survey shows that when the temperature in the pigsty is lower than 15 degrees, then the pig's food intake will be inversely related to the temperature change. For each reduction of one degree, the food intake needs to be increased by about 20g. But the daily gain will be about 15g. Compared with the suitable temperature of 20 degrees, in the cold stress environment, the weight gain rate of finishing pigs will decrease from 1kg to 0.75kg, but the feed to weight ratio will increase.

2. Affect the health of pigs

If the temperature in the pigsty is lower than the suitable temperature for pig growth, then pigs are very prone to cold stress. It is manifested in vasoconstriction, vertical hair, tail biting, clustering and so on. The morbidity and mortality of pigs will increase, especially in young pigs. If there is cold stress in young pigs, then their physiological function is not yet fully mature, so it is very easy to be disordered. For example, metabolic disorder, decreased immunity and so on. As a result, the incidence of disease is high, and once the disease occurs in piglets, it is mainly a primary disease, which is easy to be secondary to a variety of miscellaneous diseases.

3. The decline of reproductive ability

Cold stress also has a great impact on the body condition of sows, which will lead to the failure of sows to give full play to their production potential. Moreover, under long-term cold stress, the phenomena of miscarriage, premature delivery and stillbirth in sows are very serious. The decline of reproductive capacity, in serious cases, will also affect the lifelong reproductive ability of sows. So in the coldest winter, it is also the time when the sow reproduction rate is the lowest. If the cold stress is relatively mild, it will not do much harm to the reproductive performance of boars. However, if the feeding conditions are bad, it is easy to cause frostbite of boar testis, and it will affect the quantity and quality of boar semen, thus reducing the mating rate.

The above is a brief introduction to the effects of cold stress on pigs. That's all for today's introduction. This article is for reference only. I hope it can help you all.