Feed Nutrition Management in early Nursing of Pigs

Feeding induction and intestinal development by lactation

The purpose of early supplementary feeding for suckling piglets is to adapt to the feed environment as soon as possible after weaning, to be familiar with the shape and taste of feed, and to improve feed intake after weaning. Piglets begin to produce a small amount of hydrochloric acid and digestive enzymes in the stomach of 14-day-old piglets, so about 2 weeks after birth, piglets can use a disc feed trough and add a small amount of opening material to slowly learn to feed from play. Once you eat the opening material, the acids and enzymes produced in the stomach increase rapidly, which will speed up the decomposition and absorption of the feed, and there is acid in the stomach, harmful bacteria such as E. coli will not reproduce.

After the piglets quickly adapt to weaning and feed, the food in the stomach will accelerate the secretion of new digestive juice, and the weaned pigs will digest the food normally, absorb nutrients and adapt to the environment of the nursery. If the weaned piglets do not adapt to the conservation environment and only eat little feed, the secretion of digestive juices such as gastric acid decreases sharply, the acidity in the stomach decreases, the environment suitable for beneficial bacteria is destroyed, and the harmful bacteria absorbed by the intestinal tract are doubled. Eventually lead to malnutrition, weight loss, and even death of piglets.

Group effect

Pigs are only social animals, accustomed to the centralized feeding of sows, like to compete, and often imitate the behavior of pigs in the same column, including feeding, sleeping and excretion. Therefore, when pigs arrive at the nursery, they have to create conditions so that they can feed at the same time. When they hear or see other pigs arch their feed out of the trough, they will be tempted to increase their feed intake.

Feeding times and feed form

After birth, the sow will ask the piglet to suck about every hour, and once weaned, the piglet will leave the sow and live on its own, looking for feed and water, so it must be trained as soon as possible. In the initial stage, simulate the habit of lactation, feed every 1 hour (and then gradually increase the interval), and knock on the trough to form a conditioned reflex and develop good behavior habits. In terms of feed form, the conversion from liquid milk to solid feed requires a transition. Therefore, in the piglet training stage, a small amount of water can be added to the feed, and the wet mixture can be gradually transferred to powder and pellet.

Feed freshness

Because piglets have just been weaned, feeding should follow the principle of a small number of times to ensure that pigs can feed at any time while putting an end to waste. If a large amount of feed is fed in the trough at one time, the saliva from the mouth of the piglets will cause caking and mildew of the feed, affect the freshness of the feed and cause intestinal diseases of the piglets. In addition, the piglets will leave a lot of powder after chewing. Covering the feed with powder will cause piglets to refuse to eat. Therefore, the feed should be adequate and not wasted.

Material trough design

Pigs are only raised in groups and like to scramble. When designing a feed trough, we should not only minimize feed waste, but also take care of the fact that pigs can feed at the same time as far as possible, so as to increase feed intake. Circular feed chutes can do this better than other types of chutes. Check the feed in the trough every day and clean up the caked feed and the feed contaminated by feces and urine to increase the freshness of the feed.