Liquid diets accelerate the growth of early-weaned pigs and the effects are maintained to market weight.

Abstract

Piglets (n = 240, 11.0+/-0.1 d old, 3.93+/-0.05 kg) were allotted to one of four treatments in a 2 x 2 factorial arrangement to examine the effects of diet physical form and nursery environment during the first 14 d after weaning on growth to market weight. During the treatment period, pigs were housed (10 pigs/ pen) in either a conventional hot nursery (30 degrees C) or a segregated-temperature nursery (cool ambient temp. of 24 degrees C, with enclosed hot-box hovers at 32 degrees C). Pigs in each environment were fed nutritionally identical diets in either liquid or dry-pellet form for 14 d. Subsequently, all pigs were fed identical dry diets and were housed in common grower-finisher facilities (penned by sex, five pigs/pen). At the end of the treatment period (d 14), pigs fed the liquid diet were 21% heavier than pigs fed the dry pellet diet (9.22 vs 7.60 kg; P < 0.001). Similarly, gain, feed intake, and gain/feed of liquid-fed pigs were 44%, 18%, and 22% greater, respectively, than observed for pigs fed the dry pellet diet. No main effect of environment was observed (P > 0.10); however, an interaction with diet physical form occurred during the early-nursery period (P < 0.01). Pigs fed the liquid diet showed better performance in the conventional nursery, whereas pigs fed the dry pellet diet were favored in the segregated-temperature nursery. No major differences in growth performance or in ultrasound carcass measurements were detected during the growing-finishing period; however, the advantage in body weight of liquid-fed pigs gained during the first 2 wk postweaning was maintained to the end of the trial (113.9 vs 110.6 kg; P < 0.05). Pigs that were fed the early-nursery diet in liquid form reached market weight (110 kg) 3.7 d sooner than the dry-fed controls (P < 0.01). Estimates of lean gain (calculated from live ultrasound data) were unaffected, suggesting that composition of growth was not altered. Collectively, these results show that liquid feeding during early life can markedly accelerate piglet growth performance and that the growth advantage is maintained to market weight, with no evidence of compensatory gain in the dry-fed control pigs.

Endogenous ileal losses of nitrogen and amino acids in pigs and piglets fed graded levels of casein

“…In weaned piglets, there are only three papers where piglets of similar weight and age were used. However, Darragh and Moughan (1998) and Mavromichalis et al (2001) used liquid diets that could have modified the response, due to a different passage rate and because the effect of changing from liquid to solid diets at weaning is one of the main factors causing digestive failures at weaning (Kim et al 2001). In the work by Caine et al (1997), diets had considerably higher amount of soybean meal, which may have induced a higher loss of endogenous AA because of increased secretions caused by the lower digestibility of its N and the greater damage of the intestinal mucosa integrity by soybean meal (Li et al 1990(Li et al , 1991.…”

The Potential Impact of Animal Science Research on Global Maternal and Child Nutrition and Health: A Landscape Review

“…Early-life growth acceleration can be maintained into adulthood (67, 69); however, if applied too early (∼2 d of age) in a commercial farm environment (70), subsequent growth kinetics and viability falter. This might be attributable to the plethora of bioactive factors (71, 72) in sow milk that pigs weaned early onto milk replacer did not receive.…”

Gut function and dysfunction in young pigs: physiology

“…Providing weaner diets in a liquid form is also favorable for feed intake and health [7,35]. Supplementing diets with animal proteins such as colostrum [42] or spray dried plasma (SDP, review by [85]) do have a positive influence on the various aspects of the intestine.…”