Abstract
We described the reproductive performance of native pigs raised by smallholders in a traditional way and used for ritual sacrifice in a Hmong village in the hills of northern Thailand. Field study was conducted between May 2005 and January 2007 (13 months in total). The pig reproductive performance in ten households during two years (January 2005 to December 2006) was as follows: The 15 farrowing samples in the households had an average litter size at birth of 7.1 and litter size at weaning of 6.0 (pre-weaning mortality 16%). A total of 107 piglets were born in the ten households during the two years, an average of 5.4 piglets per household per year. We were only able to collect data on farrowing intervals in three cases, two of eight months and one of 19 months. There was no concentrated farrowing period: of the 15 farrowings, there were seven months with one farrowing each (February, April, May, June, July, September, November), four with two farrowings (January, March, August, December), and one with none (October). This indicates that households have a variety of attitudes to pig reproduction, and that there is no seasonality in farrowing.
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Acknowledgement
The author thanks Professor Kazunobu Ikeya (Graduate University for Advanced Studies, National Museum of Ethnology, Japan) for suggesting this study, and the villagers of Huai Yuak village for their assistance. This study was conducted as part of the Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, Japan (RIHN) project, “A Trans-Disciplinary Study on the Regional Eco-History in Tropical Monsoon Asia: 1945–2005” (Project leader, Professor Tomoya Akimichi) and by the author as a Visiting Graduate Student (April 2006–March 2008) of the Research Program for Graduate Students at the National Museum of Ethnology, Japan.
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Nakai, S. Reproductive performance analysis of native pig smallholders in the hillside of northern Thailand. Trop Anim Health Prod 40, 561–566 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-008-9134-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11250-008-9134-5