Sows in mid parity are best foster mothers for the pre- and post-weaning performance of both light and heavy piglets1

Abstract

To improve the performance of lightweight piglets during suckling, producers are advised to create uniform litters using young sows. However, fostering piglets to primiparous sows may confer penalties due to their lower milk yield and milk immunoglobulin concentrations compared with multiparous sows. The objective was to determine the effect of foster sow parity (primiparous (F), second (S), and mid parity (M: parity 3 to 5)) on the performance from birth to day 68 of piglets born light (L: ≤1.25 kg) or heavy (H: 1.50-2.00 kg) and on creep feed consumption. Piglets (n = 507) considered L or H were cross-fostered, creating litters of 13 similar-sized piglets/litter and were randomly fostered to one of the foster parities. All litters were offered creep feed with a green dye to discern between consumers and nonconsumers, and the medication administered was recorded. Medication administrated pre-and postweaning did not differ (P > 0.05) across the different experimental groups. A significantly (P ≤ 0.025) lower number of H piglets were removed as a result of preweaning weight loss from F and S, rather than M litters. The interaction between birth weight and foster parity only affected piglet BW at day 10 (P = 0.020); foster parity did not influence BW of L piglets, but influenced that of H piglets. H piglets in F and M litters (3.82 and 3.80 kg) were significantly lighter (P ≤ 0.013) than H piglets in S litters (4.15 kg). As expected, L piglets performed worse pre-and postweaning than H piglets; they were 4.50 kg lighter at day 68. Foster parity significantly affected BW: F piglets were weaned lighter (P = 0.004) than S and M piglets (7.52 vs. 8.02 kg). Postweaning (day 68) however, F piglets achieved similar BW as S piglets (29.7 vs. 29.9 kg), whereas M piglets performed best (31.2 kg, P ≤ 0.079). Significantly fewer (almost none) of the L than the H piglets consumed creep feed (P < 0.001); significantly (P = 0.007) more F and M piglets were considered consumers than S piglets. The results suggest that irrespectively of birth weight, piglets tend to perform better when in M litters, being weaned heavy and having a high creep feed intake; however, more piglets are removed from such litters preweaning. Although S litters were weaned heavy, they were unable to maintain this BW advantage postweaning, due to their low creep feed intake and F litters remained small throughout. Long-term performance monitoring to slaughter is recommended.

Foraging in the farrowing room to stimulate feeding : getting piglets to eat is bittersweet

“…Consistent with previous studies (Pajor et al, 1991;Delumeau and Meunier-Salaün, 1995;Huting et al, 2019), a large variation in eating behaviour was observed among EF piglets. In addition, in the present study, the eating behaviour of the EF piglets may have been compromised by a diarrhoeic episode during the third week (spreading between day 16-24) in almost all litters, the cause of which is unknown.…”

“…Sex could not explain intra-litter variation in weaning age in a semi-natural setting (Newberry and Wood-Gush, 1985) and was not found associated with creep feed intake in commercial settings (Tucker et al, 2010;Muns and Magowan, 2018;Huting et al, 2019). In contrast, just as many studies did find indications Chapter 1 46 that sex can explain some of the variation in individual creep feed consumption.…”

“…The proposed 'compensatory feeding hypothesis' suggests that slowergrowing piglets in the litter will compensate for a lower energy intake from milk by consuming more creep feed and therefore undergo a less severe nutritional challenge at weaning and grow faster after weaning. Piglets classified as 'good eaters' of creep feed or with a long time (eating) at the feeder before and after weaning were, indeed, slower-growing piglets before weaning (Algers et al, 1990;Appleby et al, 1992;Sommavilla et al, 2015;Huting et al, 2019). Complementary, other data suggest that the compensatory feeding hypothesis also holds on litter level, which may partly explain the large between-litter variation in creep feed intake (Bruininx et al, 2002(Bruininx et al, , 2004.…”

“…The health status of the sow may also be important for creep feed intake, as outdoor-housed piglets reared by sows infected with nematodes ate more creep feed at 4 weeks of age than piglets reared by control sows (Damm et al, 2003), which may indicate a lower milk production by infected sows, but data on nursing, sow feed intake and body weight loss did not support this hypothesis. Primiparous and mid parity sows (parity 3 to 5) had less non-eaters and more bad eaters in their litter than second parity sows, while primiparous sows had more moderate eaters in their litter than second and mid parity sows, suggesting milk production may play a role in the effect of parity on creep feed consumption (Huting et al, 2019).…”

“…However, effects of a low energy intake from milk are confounded in intermittent suckling regimes by the temporal maternal separation before weaning, which may increase separation stress before weaning, but reduce separation stress after weaning (Turpin et al, 2016). Secondly, primiparous sows, that produce less milk (Beyer et al, 2007;Ngo et al, 2012;Strathe et al, 2017) and consequently wean lighter piglets (Bierhals et al, 2011;Huting et al, 2019), have been found to rear more eaters of creep feed than second parity sows, and particularly more moderate eaters of creep feed compared to multiparous sows (Huting et al, 2019). Results of other studies, however, do not support or are even contradictory to the compensatory feeding hypothesis (Pajor et al, 1991;Pluske et al, 2007;Berkeveld et al, 2009).…”