Pen-Mating Female Pigs

Pen-mating, one of three mating systems available to pork producers is the process of putting boars and females in the same pen for a designated period (usually 21 to 42 days) using an unsupervised mating process. Scientific experiments have evaluated the influence of pen-mating on reproductive performance. Although pen-mating is utilized as a labor-saving strategy for breeding management, farrowing rate (number of females farrowed per number of females exposed) of females pen-mated at first estrus after weaning varies substantially. A comparison between breeding pens in Table 2 cannot be made because of differences in the age of boars, number of boars per pen, and number of sows in each pen.