A Survey of Neonatal Piglet Mortality in Commercial Pig Farms in Lagos State, Southwest Nigeria

Abstract

Neonatal piglet mortality (NPM) up to seven days of life causes major pig production losses worldwide. A structured questionnaire survey was administered on 151 pig farmers in Lagos State, Nigeria, for information on NPM on their farms. Subsequently, Focus Group Discussions and In-depth interviews were carried out to clarify the points that appeared not to have been sufficiently addressed by questionnaire respondents. Accruing data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and multiple regressions. Of all the151 respondent farmers, 66.9% were males and 76.8% were above 45years of age, herd sizes were 1-100 pigs (50.3%), 101-200 pigs (32.5%), over 200 pigs (17.2%) representing small, medium, and large scale producers respectively. General management practices of the farmers were rated as good (42.5%) or poor (57.5%).The overall NPM was40.2%.Of this, 90.1% occurred during the rainy season months with the highest rate (62.9%) being recorded in the month with the lowest mean ambient temperature. Farmers’ identified the causes of NPM as diarrhoea (42.4%), starvation (27.2%), crushing (23.8%), congenital abnormalities (3.3%) and unknown cause (3.3%).The major clinical signs that farmers observed in neonatal piglets were diarrhoea (92.1%), respiratory distress (7.3%) and failure to suckle (9.4%). Care of new born (CNB) was rated as poor in 70.9%and good in 29.1% of the farms, while management of pregnant pigs (MPP) was adjudged poor on 66.2% and good on 33.8% of the farms. Significantly, CNB (p<0.001), MPP (p<0.001), feeding and watering (p<0.001) and production practice (p<0.007) were negatively correlated with NPM while Farmer’s experience (p<0.009) was positively correlated with NPM. The study highlighted the need for the institution of improved protocols for MPP, farrowing and CNB in order to minimise NPM on the farms.