Impact of porcine epidemic diarrhea on herd and individual Berkshire sow productivity

Porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED) is an emerging disease of pigs in several countries. In the present study, individual sow productivity of Berkshire sows exposed to PED virus at different stages of production was compared. On a commercial farrow-to-finish farm in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan, the clinical presence of PED was observed in the farrowing barn on January 6, 2014, and all gilts and sows were immunized on January 9, except those in the farrowing barn. The sows were categorized into six groups based on the period in which they were exposed to PED virus: between days 0–30 (G1), 31–60 (G2), 61–90 (G3), or after 91 days of pregnancy (G4), during lactation (L), and after weaning (W). The control group was not exposed to PED during the period of PED outbreak. The study was based on 574 production records. The sows of the G4 and L groups had the fewest piglets weaned (4.8 ± 0.4, and 4.0 ± 0.3 pigs, respectively; P