Evaluating peripartum calcium administration strategies to improve sow farrowing performance and piglet livability.

ABSTRACT: A total of 933 sows were used to evaluate peripartum calcium administration protocols on sow farrowing performance and piglet livability. Sows were blocked by parity and average stillbirths in previous parities then allotted to 1 of 3 treatments with 310 to 312 replications. Treatments included: (i) Control with sows receiving no intervention; (ii) 25 g of a calcium chloride-based product (CaCl₂) top-dressed daily each morning from approximately d 112 of gestation until farrowing; or (iii) calcium gluconate injection (CaG) administered to primiparous and multiparous sows (15 or 20 mL injection, respectively), at the time that a sow was classified as "at-risk" defined by the sow, in the current parturition, having more than 16 pigs, longer than 1 h since the birth of the last pig

SUBMITTER: Jenkins AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12701389 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature