To eat, or not to eat: that is the question

Training piglets to eat ensures a smooth and better transition at weaning

At weaning, piglets are exposed to a lot of stress factors. After separation from their mother and relocation to a nursery barn with new pen mates, they rely solely on the provided solid dry feed to obtain all their life-required nutrients. Additionally, due to the weaning stress, appetite and voluntary feed intake might be reduced. As a result, a lot of piglets suffer from a temporary anorexia, a fasting period of a few hours to even days. When the newly weaned piglets start eating, the feed intake often is variable as well. Some piglets start up very slowly, while others tend to overeat, causing gastrointestinal discomfort and development of diarrhea. Low feed intake and the resulting interruption of supply in energy and nutrients is also detrimental to piglets’ (gut) health and impacts growth, performance and mortality of nursery piglets, with long-term effects, even up till slaughter.

Why eating before weaning is the key for smooth transition

It is important to provide young piglets already in the farrowing house with additional feed next to sow’s milk. In the first place, providing extra energy and nutrients can improve piglets’ pre-weaning growth. Besides, piglets need to be trained to consume alternative feed sources and learn to eat something not coming from their mother’s teats. For a smooth transition, it’s essential piglets are encouraged already before weaning to actively search for alternative sources of nutrition. Learning to eat before weaning prevents that the weaned piglets will not access the feed for a period of a few hours to even days, causing a detrimental disruption in their feed intake. A weaning piglet of 6kg needs to consume approximately 200 grams of feed per day just to meet its maintenance requirements for energy and nutrients. Therefore feed intake must be stimulated.

A third benefit of getting piglets to eat before weaning is that this makes their gastrointestinal tract already more familiar with vegetable ingredients. If vegetable nutrient sources are introduced before weaning, the development of the intestines and the digestive system is promoted. Training the gut to digest this new type of ingredients will prevent gastrointestinal problems such as diarrhea after weaning.

With all these reasons, it’s clear we should aim to have as much eaters (= piglets that are already consuming solid feed) as possible at the end of the suckling period. Eaters will be more robust and more resilient to stress after weaning and will start the intake of feed earlier with less fall-back. Additionally, more eaters in the pen can help the non-eaters to start earlier after weaning with feed consumption. If a weaned piglet sees other piglets eating, it is more likely to consume some feed as well.

Providing piglet milk replacer to encourage feed intake

Although creep feed is provided to piglets in the farrowing stable, intake can be low and the amount of piglets that consume it can be disappointing, especially at young weaning ages. Research shows that at 21 days of age, up to 50% of piglets do not consume dry feed.

To encourage the feed intake and the number of eating piglets, providing milk replacers can be stimulating. Due to the higher similarity with sow’s milk, it’s recognized that piglets will find milk replacers more easy to try compared to a dry feed. Once acquainted to consuming something else additionally to sow’s milk, the step to further explore other feed sources and to eat dry creep feed will be more easy. For an optimal experience of piglets with milk replacers, milk management is important. Preferably, milk is provided in a suitable, clean and hygienic bowl and this multiple times a day because frequent provision of fresh product triggers piglets to eat. Placing the bowl near the sow’s head also helps piglets learn to eat by observing their mother. In practice, pig farmers might see the manual provision of milk replacers as a drawback, even though they believe in its benefits. Luckily nowadays good automated systems with drinking cups exist, such as the Piglait’s automated Cup System.

These systems provide piglets in the farrowing room continuously (thus 24 hours a day or 24/7) with access to milk replacer, without the labour of manually preparing the milk. On demand, when piglets push the nipples of the cup, small portions of fresh milk are prepared in the system’s mixing cup with hot water at the correct temperature, and immediately distributed to the cups. This ensures reliable quality of the milk and a good experience for the young piglet. In many other systems, a large quantity of milk is prepared once for the whole day and then circulates continuously in the system. This recirculation creates high risks for contamination of the milk: bacterial spoilage or souring of the milk, resulting in bad taste, poor quality and more wastage. As a result, milk consumption can become a negative experience for piglets, diminishing their intake or even resulting in gut health problems. With freshly prepared milk, quality is guaranteed and milk will be attractive for piglets. Moreover, cup systems have an exploring attractiveness for piglets, as the moveable nipple encourages interaction and releases fresh milk as a reward. Automated cup systems therefore can be considered as an optimal way to stimulate the animals to explore new feed sources and learn to eat.

PICTURE 03: Piglait’s mixing unit and automated Cup System

Benefits of piglet milk replacer

For a good transition at weaning, piglets should already be trained to eat during their suckling period. If piglets are already adapted to solid feed, they will not only start eating sooner after weaning, also their gastrointestinal tract is better developed to digest the dry feed including vegetable ingredients. This will reduce the incidence of problems such as weaning diarrhea.

Supplementation of Piglait milk replacer, especially 24/7 via systems such as Piglait’s automated Cup System, encourages the feed intake in the pre-weaning period. Piglets provided with milk replacer are better prepared for a smooth weaning process. Moreover, they have higher body weights and are thus more robust to undergo the stressful weaning period.