Abstract
An attempt was made to measure the qualitative fecal gestagen concentration in the sow using a commercial bovine milk progesterone qualitative test EIA kit (qualitative kit), which can measure the gestagen concentration in approximately 10 min. Additionally, the possibility of applying this method of gestagen concentration measurement to early pregnancy diagnosis in the sow was investigated. Feces were collected from the rectum of the sow, and 0.5 g of feces was placed in 20 ml of distilled water and stirred. The supernatant was used as the fecal solution, which was subjected to measurement by the qualitative kit. The accuracy of pregnancy diagnosis at 21-25 days after last mating for 111 sows was 97.6% (80/82) for positive cases and 100% (17/17) for negative cases. The overall pregnancy diagnosis accuracy, including 12 indeterminable cases, was 87.4% (97/111). A comparison of the diagnoses based on gestagen concentrations that were measured using the qualitative kit, and the fecal gestagen concentrations of identical samples that were measured using the quantitative kit showed close agreement: 17 cases diagnosed as negative pregnancy by the qualitative kit all had a gestagen concentration of less than 200 ng/g, while 79 of 82 cases diagnosed as positive pregnancy by the qualitative kit showed a gestagen concentration of over 200 ng/g. The results of this study showed that qualitative measurement of the fecal gestagen concentration in the sow using a bovine milk progesterone qualitative test EIA kit is a practical method for early pregnancy diagnosis.
