Farmers can save more piglets by focusing on those born late in farrowing, AFBI research finds

Date published: 23 June 2026

Farmers could save up to one piglet per litter by focusing on the wellbeing of pigs born late in the farrowing process, new research by the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) has found.

The average sow delivers 17 piglets per litter but only around 14 to 15 usually survive.

A study by AFBI scientists found that piglets born later in the farrowing process are less likely to survive, irrespective of birth weight.

The project looked at more than 2,100 piglets born from more than 140 sows during four separate pig trials.

Scientists tracked the birth order of the piglets and placed them into three categories – early piglets which were born from first to fifth, middle piglets which were born from sixth to tenth, and late piglets which were born from the eleventh onwards.

Research found that piglets born from the eleventh in birth order onwards had a 77% chance of survival, compared to 83% for early piglets and 85% for middle piglets.

The study found that piglets born early in farrowing are more robust, meaning they are less likely to be stillborn, drink more colostrum and gain more weight in the first 24 hours of life.

The study also found that, as expected, piglets which survive lactation and the nursery period are heavier at birth (1.38kg) than piglets who do not survive (1.10kg).

However, the research showed that birth order had no relationship to birth weight and that late piglets tended to have the same weight (1.39kg) as early piglets (1.37kg).

The findings were presented at a research conference at AFBI Hillsborough on pig health, management, and environmentally sustainable production.

Dr Ramon Muns, head of AFBI’s Monogastric Research Group, said: “Most of the management after farrowing is based on trying to save pigs at a lower weight but what we found was that birth order can be equally important to body weight.

“The higher mortality observed among ‘late’ born piglets is not due to weight but more likely due to low oxygen levels during a long birth process and subsequent low vitality.

“Farmers already spend a lot of time in the farrowing room making sure that all piglets have the same chance of success.

“If we could bring the survival of ‘late’ pigs from 77% up to 83-84% survival (same level as in ‘early’ and ‘middle’ pigs), we would increase overall litter survival by 3 to 5% (almost one extra piglet assuming 16 total born piglets).

“One extra piglet per sow (using £50 as a reference/approximate price for a weaner, extra feed for the sow not accounted for) could result in an additional ≈£100 per sow per year.”

The study recommended that farmers consider:

• Making sure sows have feed available around their farrowing date: the shorter the interval between the sow’s last meal and start of farrowing, the shorter the farrowing time

• Making sure sows have easy access to water

• Making sure sows are not constipated prior to farrowing by giving them bran or mixing a gestation and lactation diet from when a sow enters the farrowing room until farrowing

• Being mindful that sows with a higher fat deposition are likely to have a longer farrowing

• Spray marking piglets when doing the farrowing checks to easily identify those born late 

• That ‘higher risk’ piglets will be the ones born in the second half or last third of the farrowing process, in addition to very small ones

• If you practice split nursing, make sure you block the access to the udder of the pigs born first rather than the heaviest ones

• If you do cross-foster, cross-foster the early born pigs because they would have had higher colostrum intake.

The study was co-funded by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) and farmer-funded body Pig Regen.