Handling Associated with Drenching Does Not Impact Survival and General Health of Low Birth Weight Piglets

Abstract

The increase in litter sizes in recent years has resulted in more low birth weight (LBW) piglets, accompanied by a higher mortality. A potential intervention to overcome this is drenching bioactive substances. However, if the act of drenching provokes additional stress in LBW piglets, it might counteract the supplement’s effect and be detrimental for the piglet’s survival. To study the effect of the drenching act, piglets from 67 sows were weighed within 4 h after birth. The mean litter birth weight (MLBW) and standard deviation (SD) were calculated. LBW piglets (n = 76) were defined as weighing between (MLBW-1*SD) and (MLBW-2.5*SD). They were randomly allocated to two treatments: “sham” (conducting the act of drenching by inserting an empty 2.5 mL syringe in the mouth during 20 s, once a day, d1 till d7; n = 37) or “no treatment” (no handling; n = 39). On day 1, 3, 9, 24 and 38, piglets were weighed and scored for skin lesions. Blood samples were collected on day 9 and 38 and analyzed to determine glucose, non-esterified fatty acids (NEFA), urea, immunoglobulin G (IgG), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and a standard blood panel test. There was no difference between sham drenched and untreated piglets regarding any of the parameters. In conclusion, this study showed that drenching does not impose a significant risk to LBW piglets and can be applied safely during the first 7 days after birth.

A Workflow for High Through-Put, High Precision Livestock Diagnostic Screening of Locomotor Kinematics

“…Piglets from selected litters were weighed at birth and numbered with non-toxic skin markers. Low birth weight (LBW) was classified by birth weight quantile (lowest 10%of each litter) and by a maximum mass of 800g (D’Inca et al, 2011; Litten et al, 2003; Van Tichelen et al, 2021; Wang et al, 2016); all other piglets are assigned the NBW category. At variable time points afterwards (ages 1 – 10 hours), piglets were briefly taken from their pen and brought to a separate room for video recording (see below).…”

“…Of particular interest has been the occurrence of a subset of individuals which are born with lower weight (LBW, low birth weight) than their “normal” (NBW) littermates. There are multiple standards to classify these birth weight categories, using absolute mass, litter quantile criteria, or asymmetry of body proportions (Amdi et al, 2013; D’Inca et al, 2011; Feldpausch et al, 2019; Quiniou et al, 2002; Roehe and Kalm, 2000; Van Tichelen et al, 2021; Wang et al, 2016). A possible cause of low birth weight is intra-uterine growth restriction, and LBW phenotype seems often, but not always, to correlate with low vitality and a reduced chance of survival (Baxter et al, 2008; Hales et al, 2013; Muns et al, 2013; Van Ginneken et al, 2022).…”

Definition of low birth weight in domestic mammals: a scoping review

“…2). Among the 16 publications included, 8 focused on piglets (Baxter et al, 2008;Magnabosco et al, 2016;Calderón Díaz et al, 2017;Feldpausch et al, 2019;Zeng et al, 2019;Gourley et al, 2020;Van Tichelen et al, 2021a, 2021b, 6 on puppies (Mila et al, 2015;Mugnier et al, 2019aMugnier et al, , 2019bMugnier et al, , 2020aFusi et al, 2020;Schrank et al, 2020) and 1 on calves (Dabdoub, 2005), with sample sizes ranging from 135 to 19,168 neonates (median = 1016). The remaining paper (Wootton et al, 1983) was based on 347 litters from 5 different polytocous species (rat, mouse, dog, pig, and rabbit).…”

“…Apart from the 3 papers having chosen the first quartile value as a threshold, the proportion of newborns ultimately categorized as LBW was reported in 7 of the 13 remaining papers (Wootton et al, 1983;Magnabosco et al, 2016;Feldpausch et al, 2019;Mugnier et al, 2019aMugnier et al, , 2019bMugnier et al, , 2020aSchrank et al, 2020) and varied from 5% in puppies (Mugnier et al, 2019a) to 24% for mice (Wootton et al, 1983). In the 12 studies based on the relationship with the risk of mortality to define the birth weight cut-off, mortality rates among LBW neonates were explicitly compared with those of higher birth weight in 8 papers, with a 2-9-fold increase in risk (Table 2).…”

Influence of the application methods of iron/anticoccidial products on the behaviour and associated stress factors of suckling piglets

“…As such, it can be considered as a stressor with a possible negative effect; misapplication may potentially cause irritation to the respiratory tract of piglets. Nevertheless, recently published research did not associate handling due to drenching with a negative impact on the survival or general health of low-birth-weight piglets (Van Tichelen et al 2021).…”