Effect of age and gender on haematological and serum chemistry parameters of pigs in Trinidad and Tobago

ABSTRACT

A total of 361 blood samples were collected from nursey pigs, grower/finishers and adult breeding pigs on 36 farms in Trinidad and Tobago and evaluated for selected haematological parameters and serum chemistry. The erythron and all leukon variables, except eosinophils, were unaffected by gender. Females had higher eosinophil counts than males (P ¡Ü 0.05). Males were found to have higher creatine kinase values than females (770.65 ¡À 55.03 vs. 594.39 ¡À 33.14 U/L, P = 0.006). No differences existed between males and females for the other serum chemistry parameters studied. Age had a msignificant effect on the erythron parameters evaluated; the haemoglobin, haematocrit, and mean corpuscular haemoglobin concentration showed increasing trends with age (P ¡Ü 0.05). Adult breeding animals had significantly lower white blood cell counts and lymphocyte counts than the other age groups ( P > 0.05). Similarly, there was no significant age effect for calcium, bilirubin, alanine aminotransferase, or gamma -glutamyl transferase ( P > 0.05). Potassium and glucose decreased with age whereas sodium increased with age, chloride was lower in grower/finishers than in either the adult or the nursery groups ( P ¡Ü 0.05). Creatinine, total protein and albumin increased with age; globulin and bicarbonate increased significantly from the nursery stage to the grower/finisher stage but decreased to adult values (P ¡Ü 0.05). Alkaline phosphatase was significantly lower in adults than in the other two groups, whereas aspartate aminotransferase was higher in nursery pigs than in adults (P ¡Ü 0.05).