The delayed onset of puberty is one of the major problems in mating gilts. This is conflicting for commercial breeding units usually promise to deliver sexual mature gilts, but also for farmers who need to mate gilts as soon as possible to achieve breeding targets (2). This often means to mate gilts in their pubertal estrus despite an adverse effect on the farrowing rate and the litter size (2), which is at least caused by a reduced uterine size, that dramatically increases during the 1st and 2nd sexual cycle (3). Therefore, since the uterine size, particularly expressed as the uterine weight, is considered as determinant for the reproductive performance in gilts, the aim of this study was to characterize the uterus and to evaluate criteria for thein vivo prediction of the uterine weight in gilts by transcutaneous ultrasonography.
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