BackgroundPiglets at weaning suffer many stressors such as sudden change of feed, change in group composition and the end of lactogenic immunity. These stressors may cause poor growth performance. There is a need for alternatives to support piglets during the weaning period. Organic acids are known to have a positive effect on performance through reducing the pH and their antimicrobial action.Context & purposeThe purpose was to study the effect of the inclusion of a free and buffered organic acid blend in drinking water on performance of weaned pigs.Four-hundred and twenty pigs in a conventional herd were allocated after weaning to one of three treatments and monitored during 4 weeks: group (1) Full medication, group (2) organic acid blend + full medication, group (3) organic acid blend + reduced medication. Average daily gain, feed intake and water consumption was recorded at group level.ResultsDuring the overall study period live weight and average daily gain of the piglets was significantly higher (P <0.001) for treatment (3) compared to (1) and (2) (Table 1). Live weight was significantly higher for treatment (3) compared to (1) from week 2 of the study (Fig. 1). No significant differences were found for average daily feed intake. FCR for treatment (3) improved by 1.0 compared to treatment (1) in week 1 (P <0.05), while in week 2 and 3 no significant differences were found (Table 2). Overall, FCR was with 0.3 difference significantly lower (P = 0.001) for treatment (3) than for (1) and (2) (Table 1). Pigs receiving organic acids in drinking water had significantly (P <0.05) higher water consumption than group (1) in weeks 3 and 4 (Table 2).Conclusion & potential implicationsThe use of a blend of free and buffered organic acids together with a reduced medication program improves growth performance during the first month after weaning compared to a control with full medication and a combination between organic acids and full medication. This implies that organic acids could be used as a valid alternative for antibiotic reduction in post-weaning pigs. The treatment also increased the drinking water intake.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s40813-016-0043-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
CYSTITIS and pyelonephritis is reported to account for between 7 and 29 per cent of adult sow deaths, although it has become less common in the UK in recent years. While clinically the condition must be treated on an individual basis, where a number of animals are affected the disease can affect farm performance. This article discusses the treatment of the individual sow and the various protocols for controlling cystitis in a herd.
The paper reports the anatomy of the ureterovesical junction in pigs without urinary tract disease and the changes that occur with ageing. In comparison with other mammals the pig has a long intravesical ureter. Its length increases with age, from a mean length of 5 mm. at birth to 36 mm. at maturity. The width of the ureteric orifice also increases with age. The ureteric orifice was horseshoe shaped in 96.5% of cases, the remaining orifices were stadium shaped. The delineation of the anatomy of the porcine UVJ is important in the study of porcine and human pyelonephritis as the pig urinary tract is widely used as a human model.
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