The effects of late gestation feeding of dichlorvos to sows on sow productivity and pig performance

Data from 113 crossbred Duroc, Hampshire, Yorkshire and Landrace litters were used to study the effects of feeding 1 gram of dichlorvos daily to the gilt or sow for the last 30 days of gestation on the pro-ductivity traits of the sow and the performance traits of the pigs from her litter. There were 1127 pig births from 9 farrowings during 1980 included in this study. Pigs were ear notched, weighed and needle teeth clipped on day one. Male pigs were castrated on day three. The pigs were weaned at 4 weeks of age, weighed and placed in the pig nursery. The largest one-third of the pigs by weight were randomly assigned to 4 nursing pens, the middle third to 4 pens and the light-weight one-third to the remaining 4 pens. After about 50 days in the nursery, the pigs were weighed and moved to the finishing barns. No significant differences were found in sow productivity and pig performance traits between the control and dichlorvos treatment groups when all data were pooled from the 9 farrowing groups. However, there was a tendency for dichlorvos litters to perform better than control litters in all performance traits measured except total number of pigs born, number of pigs born alive and number of pigs weaned per litter.