Health management of piglets during weaning

The health of piglets depends on many factors, so ensuring the healthy growth of piglets should also depend on broader feed management measures.

Weaning is the most stressful event faced by piglets in their lives. Piglets are separated from their live sows and reared in mixed groups with piglets from other litters; at the same time, piglets must adapt to a shift from highly digestible breast milk to complex solid diets that are less digestible and have to learn to drink and feed independently, all of which results in a decrease in feed intake and weight gain in piglets during the early stages of weaning, and some piglets do not eat within 48 hours after weaning.

Feed intake in the first week after weaning is the basis for successful weaning of piglets. Early feed intake will directly affect the health and growth performance of piglets during fattening period. In order for weaned piglets to grow healthily, the following points should be done:

1 measures before weaning

It is very important for piglets to eat enough colostrum at birth to maintain body temperature and provide adequate immunoglobulin. Each piglet should suck at least 250 g / kg 300 g colostrum. In order to achieve this goal, piglets were divided into two groups according to birth weight within 24 hours after birth, and alternating lactation was used.

Piglets learn to eat trough feed frequently on the 4th to 5th day after birth, so that they can get enough feed in the later stage of lactation.

2 palatability and digestibility

Among the protein concentrate materials sold in the market, plasma protein is a very suitable protein concentrate for newly weaned piglets, which can promote the food intake of piglets in the critical first few days after weaning. Plasma protein can promote the growth performance and feed intake of piglets, and plasma can increase feed intake by at least 25% compared with other protein sources (milk and plant protein sources). Plasma can reduce the mortality and diarrhea incidence of piglets.

3Morphology and proportion

During weaning, piglets usually eat solid feed, but liquid feed can increase their feed intake and promote intestinal health. Liquid feed to ensure that the feed and trough clean and hygienic and low microbial contamination, a small number of times to feed. Compared with piglets fed with solid diets, the body weight and daily gain of piglets fed with the same liquid diet increased by 8% and 20%, respectively.

The measure for the healthy state of piglets during weaning is to use highly palatable and digestible feed and to feed appropriate levels of plasma in an appropriate liquid form, in order to ensure the microbiological quality of the feed and the daily feed intake of each piglet after weaning, so as to achieve the healthy growth of piglets.