Effect of method of drying piglets at birth on rectal temperature over the first 24 h after birth

Piglets are born wet, and evaporation of that moisture decreases body temperature, increasing the risk of mortality. The objective of this study was to compare the effect of two commercially applicable methods for drying piglets at birth on piglet rectal temperature over 24 h after birth. The study was carried out in standard commercial farrowing facilities with 52 litters, using a completely randomized design with three Drying Treatments: Control (not dried); Desiccant (dried at birth using a cellulose-based desiccant); Paper Towel (dried at birth using paper towels). Litters were randomly allotted to treatments at the birth of the first piglet. At birth, piglets were individually identified, and the treatment was applied. Rectal temperature was measured at 0, 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 120, and 1,440 min (24 h) after birth. Data were analyzed using a repeated measures model with PROC MIXED of SAS, with litter as the experimental unit and piglet a subsample of the litter. The model included the fixed effects of treatment and time (as a repeated measure), and the interaction. There was no effect (P\u3e 0.05) of treatment on temperature at birth, or 10 or 1,440 min after birth. Piglet temperatures between 20 and 120 min after birth were similar (P \u3e 0.05) for the Desiccant and Paper Towel treatments, but were greater (P ≤ 0.05) than the Control. The effect of birth weight on the response to Drying Treatment was evaluated by dividing the data into Light (\u3c1.0 kg), Medium (1.0 to 1.5 kg), or Heavy (\u3e1.5 kg) piglet Birth Weight Categories. Piglet rectal temperature data at each measurement time were analyzed using a model that included the fixed effects of Birth Weight Category, Drying Treatment, and the interaction. Temperatures of Light piglets were lower (P ≤ 0.05) than those of Heavy piglets between 20 and 120 min after birth, with Medium piglets being intermediate and generally different to the other two weight categories at these times. The difference in temperature between Light as compared with Medium or Heavy piglets was greater for the Control than the other two Drying Treatments at 60 min after birth. These results suggest that drying piglets at birth is an effective method to reduce rectal temperature decline in the early postnatal period, especially for low birth weight piglets

Effect of drying and/or warming piglets at birth on rectal temperature over the first 24 h after birth

Piglets experience a rapid decrease in body temperature immediately after birth, increasing the risk of mortality. The objective of this study was to determine the effect of drying and/or warming piglets at birth on rectal temperature over the first 24 h after birth. The study was carried out at a commercial sow facility using a completely randomized design with four treatments (applied to piglets at birth): Control (no drying or warming), Desiccant (dried using a desiccant), Warming Box (placed in a box under a heat lamp for 30 min), and Desiccant + Warming Box (both dried and warmed as above). Farrowing pens had one heat lamp, temperatures under which were similar to the warming box (35 °C). A total of 68 litters (866 piglets) were randomly allotted to a treatment at the birth of the first piglet. At birth, each piglet was identified with a numbered ear tag and weighed; rectal temperature was measured at 0, 10, 20, 30, 45, 60, 120, and 1,440 min after birth. Data were analyzed using a repeated-measures model using PROC MIXED of SAS. Litter was the experimental unit, piglet was a subsample of the litter; and the model included the fixed effects of treatment, time (the repeated measure), and the interaction. Rectal temperatures at birth and 1,440 min after birth were similar (P \u3e 0.05) for all treatments. At all times between 10 and 120 min after birth, Control piglets had lower (P ≤ 0.05) temperatures than the other three treatments. The Desiccant and Warming Box treatments had similar (P \u3e 0.05) temperatures at most measurement times, but the Desiccant + Warming Box treatment had the highest (P ≤ 0.05) rectal temperatures at most times between 10 and 60 min. In addition, for all treatments, light (\u3c1.0 kg) birth weight piglets had lower (P ≤ 0.05) temperatures than medium (1.0–1.5 kg) or heavy (\u3e1.5 kg) piglets at all times between 10 and 120 min. In addition, at these measurement times, the deviation in temperature between the Control and the other three treatments was greater for light than medium or heavy piglets. In conclusion, both drying and warming piglets at birth significantly increased rectal temperatures between 10 and 120 min after birth, with the combination of the two interventions having the greatest effect, especially for low birth weight piglets

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since July 2014. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the fourteenth from SDSS overall (making this, Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes public data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (July 2014-2016). Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS); the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data driven machine learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS website (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release, and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020, and will be followed by SDSS-V.Comment: SDSS-IV collaboration alphabetical author data release paper. DR14 happened on 31st July 2017. 19 pages, 5 figures. Accepted by ApJS on 28th Nov 2017 (this is the "post-print" and "post-proofs" version; minor corrections only from v1, and most of errors found in proofs corrected

The Fourteenth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the Extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey and from the Second Phase of the Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment

The fourth generation of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-IV) has been in operation since 2014 July. This paper describes the second data release from this phase, and the 14th from SDSS overall (making this Data Release Fourteen or DR14). This release makes the data taken by SDSS-IV in its first two years of operation (2014–2016 July) public. Like all previous SDSS releases, DR14 is cumulative, including the most recent reductions and calibrations of all data taken by SDSS since the first phase began operations in 2000. New in DR14 is the first public release of data from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey; the first data from the second phase of the Apache Point Observatory (APO) Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE-2), including stellar parameter estimates from an innovative data-driven machine-learning algorithm known as "The Cannon"; and almost twice as many data cubes from the Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO (MaNGA) survey as were in the previous release (N = 2812 in total). This paper describes the location and format of the publicly available data from the SDSS-IV surveys. We provide references to the important technical papers describing how these data have been taken (both targeting and observation details) and processed for scientific use. The SDSS web site (www.sdss.org) has been updated for this release and provides links to data downloads, as well as tutorials and examples of data use. SDSS-IV is planning to continue to collect astronomical data until 2020 and will be followed by SDSS-V

Effect of floor space in the nursery and grow-finish periods on the growth performance of pigs

Two studies were carried out over two 4-week periods (week 6 to 10 post-weaning in Study 1 and week 12 to 16 post-weaning in Study 2) to determine the effects of floor space in the nursery and grow-finish periods on the growth performance of pigs. In both studies, subsequent growth performance at an equal floor space across treatment levels was also evaluated over a 2-week period immediately following the floor space evaluation period. Both studies were conducted as randomized complete block designs (blocking factor = day of start of test) with 5 floor space treatment levels (0.21, 0.27, 0.33, 0.39, and 0.44 m2/pig in Study 1; 0.35, 0.45, 0.54, 0.64, and 0.73 m2/pig in Study 2). Treatment levels were selected to cover the range likely to be used under commercial conditions and were calculated to provide the same k values in both studies (i.e., 0.019, 0.025, 0.030, 0.035, and 0.041 m2/BW0.67). The estimated weight at the midpoint of the floor space evaluation period (end of week 8 in Study 1 and week 14 in Study 2) was used to calculate the respective k values. All adjustment gates were moved to the back of the pens during the subsequent period, resulting in floor spaces of 0.53 and 0.73 m2/pig in Study 1 and 2, respectively. Study 1 consisted of 15 replicates with 40 pigs per pen for a total of 3,000 pigs. Pens of pigs in Study 1 were reduced to groups of 29 pigs and re-allotted to Study 2 for a total of 2,175 pigs in 15 replicates. During the floor space evaluation periods in Study 1 and 2, ADG was decreased (P 0.05) in morbidity and mortality levels in the subsequent period of Study 2 or either period in Study 1. The results of these studies suggest that decreasing floor space can cause significant reductions in ADG, ADFI, and feed efficiency; however, feed efficiency can be improved by providing increased floor space subsequent to a floor space restriction

Analysis of polygenic selection in purebred and crossbred pig genomes using generation proxy selection mapping

Abstract Background Artificial selection on quantitative traits using breeding values and selection indices in commercial livestock breeding populations causes changes in allele frequency over time at hundreds or thousands of causal loci and the surrounding genomic regions. In population genetics, this type of selection is called polygenic selection. Researchers and managers of pig breeding programs are motivated to understand the genetic basis of phenotypic diversity across genetic lines, breeds, and populations using selection mapping analyses. Here, we applied generation proxy selection mapping (GPSM), a genome-wide association analysis of single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotypes (38,294–46,458 markers) of birth date, in four pig populations (15,457, 15,772, 16,595 and 8447 pigs per population) to identify loci responding to artificial selection over a period of five to ten years. Gene-drop simulation analyses were conducted to provide context for the GPSM results. Selected loci within and across each population of pigs were compared in the context of swine breeding objectives. Results The GPSM identified 49 to 854 loci as under selection (Q-values less than 0.10) across 15 subsets of pigs based on combinations of populations. The number of significant associations increased when data were pooled across populations. In addition, several significant associations were identified in more than one population. These results indicate concurrent selection objectives, similar genetic architectures, and shared causal variants responding to selection across these pig populations. Negligible error rates (less than or equal to 0.02%) of false-positive associations were found when testing GPSM on gene-drop simulated genotypes, suggesting that GPSM distinguishes selection from random genetic drift in actual pig populations. Conclusions This work confirms the efficacy and the negligible error rates of the GPSM method in detecting selected loci in commercial pig populations. Our results suggest shared selection objectives and genetic architectures across swine populations. The identified polygenic selection highlights loci that are important to swine production

Additional file 1 of Analysis of polygenic selection in purebred and crossbred pig genomes using generation proxy selection mapping

Additional file 1: Table S1: Proportion of variation in AGE explained by SNPs for each purebred subset using five replications of randomly simulated genotype data

Additional file 2 of Analysis of polygenic selection in purebred and crossbred pig genomes using generation proxy selection mapping

Additional file 2: Table S2: Number of SNPs significantly associated with AGE for each subset using five replicates of randomly simulated genotype data

Additional file 3 of Analysis of polygenic selection in purebred and crossbred pig genomes using generation proxy selection mapping

Additional file 3: Table S3: Population, chromosome, SNP effect, Q-value, gene identifier, associated human traits, and associated pig traits for SNPs associated with AGE from GPSM analyses