Objectives:
• Balance/even out demand on sows
• Keep as many piglets alive as possible
• Give every piglet a “fair suck of the sav”
• Free up teats when live born exceeds capacity
• Compensate for differences in immunity
• Manage tail-enders/fall behinds (nurse sows)
Principles of Fostering
• Aim to only foster in the first 24 hours after
farrowing (= < 48 hours in practice)
– After 24 hours, sow gets into cyclical let-down
– By 48 hours, teat order is established
• Every time you foster a piglet after teat order is
established, that pig has to find a new teat, but more
importantly – all of the resident piglets are disrupted
– Foster a little piglet, just likely to get pushed aside
– Foster a big piglet, its going to go for its favoured teat, causing
major disruption to resident piglets and fighting
• Under 24 hours, almost no rejection by sow
• With time over 24 hours, increasing rejection by sow
Facts!!!!!!!!!!!
Value in fostering if done properly i.e. early
1.
Whelan and Wills showed
–
–
–
–
2.
up to 48 h of age, no detrimental effects of fostering on growth
fostered piglets perform as well as, or better, than original littermates
no significant difference in weaning wt or ADG between fostered
piglets and their foster litter mates
Dont be scared to foster early
Straw
–
–
800 g piglet had 64% chance of dying if not crossfostered
800 g piglet had 15% chance of dying if fostered into a litter of smalls
(not supported by all studies e.g. report by Kirkwood found no difference, neither did Aherne)
•
Pigs fostered according to birth weight grow faster and have
half the mortality of pigs without regard to weight
SO, SOME FOSTERING IS DEFINITELY GOOOOOD
Facts!!!!!!!!!!!
Serious cost to fostering done later (esp. continuously)
1.
Straw
–
–
2.
Robert and Monteneau
–
–
•
compared mortality and growth rates of piglets subjected to limited (<
48 hours) or continuous cross-fostering.
20% decrease in body weight at weaning when cross-fostering was
unrestricted i.e. where fostering was restricted to first 48 hours,
piglets were 1.03 kg heavier at weaning
13% difference in weight between unfostered and regularly fostered
(moved piglets 3 piglets every 3 days) litters at weaning.
were weaned at 18 days – may been 20% by 28 days.
If it costs $2 to put on 1kg in the weaner phase, the weight
gained in lactation is worth $500 per week to a farm weaning
250pigs/week – and that’s not counting any of the reputed
flow on benefits of higher weaning weights.
Recommendations!!!!!!!!!!!
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
DO NOT continuously foster. No sane person
would
Foster freely within the first 1-2 days
Foster as little as possible after that i.e. only if
piglet will die unless fostered (a fall-behind)
Make sure every fostered piglet has a functional
teat to use
When fostering try to use all functional teats
(unsuckled teats will produce less milk next
lactation)
Make up “smalls” litter - use calm sow with good
temperament
Shunt fostering to create extra teats
• Some farmers simply have to do it as BA
consistently high – else very high mortality
i.e. 129 pigs farrowed from 10 sows, average of 12
functional teats per sow = 9 piglets that wont get fed!
• do a shunt foster of 9 pigs leaving 120 on the 10
sows
• Two- and three-stage shunts are better than one i.e.
don’t take pigs from this weeks farrowing and put
onto sow that you have just weaned. Rather move a
2-week old litter onto the weaned sow, a 1-week old
litter onto the 2-week farrowed sow, and the excess
piglets onto the 1-week farrowed sow (take biguns)
Newly Farrowed Sow
2-Stage Shunt Foster
10 Days Farrowed Sow
20 Days Farrowed Sow
Wean Piglets Early
Fall - behinds
• Some piglets in early to mid lactation fall behind,
and if you don’t move them you know they will die
– Why? – piglets or sow?
– Also address problem e.g. milk production
• Foster piglet that is going to die back into newlyfarrowed litter where teats are vacant or onto nurse
sow if there is a litters worth of them
– Don’t be too over-zealous with this procedure – it does some harm too
so keep it to a minimum
Nurse Sows
• Use good milking sows with good temperament (cull
sows or gilts) to suckle pigs too small to wean for an
extra week or so.
• Using gilts will often improve subsequent fertility (a gilt
that lactates for 35 days will generally give higher
conception rate and litter size than a gilt that lactates
for 21 days with modern genotypes.)
• Fostering piglets in first 1 – 2 days is
good
– Increased survival, weight etc
• Fostering after 48 hours is bad - very
bad
– Decreased growth etc
– Only do it if you have to
Objective:
1. Get sow through lactation with minimal weight
loss
–
The reality is that most young sows (Gs, P1s) don’t
eat enough during lactation to requirements
(maintenance, growth, milk)
2. Get sow to produce as much milk as the litter
can handle
–
This means underfeeding sow over first week!
3. Wean good hearty piglets
–
It requires 4 kg of milk to produce 1 kg of piglet
Young sows not eating enough during lactation
–excessive weight loss
–reduced milk production
–Increased WOI
–Decreased subsequent litter size
Sow eating/fed too much
–In early lactation – MMA, mastitis, cycle in crate
So what is right?
1. Don’t want sows too fat at farrowing – but should
gain weight (growth ~10 kg, litter ~25kg)
2. Don’t want farrowing room too hot (<220C)
(I want it hotter over farrowing – but then sows generally not eating
a lot and we don’t want them to eat too much at this time)
1. Keep feed as fresh as possible
2. Cleaning out stale feed at least once a day is a
MUST
3. Make sure there is plenty of water available
4. Wet the feed
5. Feed more than once a day
6. Have high specification palatable lactating diet
Not only fat, but just as importantly protein
1. Dont want sows too fat at farrowing – but should
gain weight (growth ~10 kg, litter ~25kg)
2. Don’t want farrowing room too hot (<220C)
(I want it hotter over farrowing – but then sows generally not eating
a lot and we don’t want them to eat too much at this time)
1. Keep feed as fresh as possible
2. Cleaning out stale feed at least once a day is a
MUST
3. Make sure there is plenty of water available
4. Wet the feed
5. Feed more than once a day
6. Have high specification palatable lactating diet
Given that we know how much milk (4 kg) it takes to grow
the litter 1 kg, if we know piglet gain we can calculate
requirement as we know what it takes to produce milk
Table 1. Predicted feed and energy requirements for a
150 kg lactating sow with 10 piglets (Aherne)
Week
1
Week
2
Week
3
Week
4
Piglet wt (kg)
2.5
4.0
6.0
8.0
Growth (g/day)
160
220
280
280
235
Milk yield (kg/day)
6.4
8.8
11.2
11.2
9.4
E required MJ DE/d
73
93
113
113
100
Feed required/day (kg*)
5.2
6.7
8.1
8.1
7.0
Actual intake/day (kg)
4.4
5.5
6.0
6.0
5.5
Sow wt loss (kg/wk)
2.6
4.1
7.5
7.8
Total 22 kg
* Diet containing 14 MJ DE/kg
Mean
Dietary lysine level (%) based on litter weaning weight and
sow feed intake
Lactation feed intake, kg/d
Adjusted 21-day
litter weaning
weight, kg
45
50
55
60
65
70
3.5
4.0
4.5
5.0
5.5
6.0
1.05
0.90
0.80
0.75
0.70
0.65
1.2
1.1
1.0
0.9
0.8
0.75
0.7
1.2
1.1
1.0
0.9
0.85
0.75
0.7
50
1.2
1.1
1.0
0.9
0.85
0.8
56
1.2
1.1
1.05
0.95
0.9
62
1.1.5
1.05
1.0
68
1.2
6.5
7.0
Lysine
g/d
37
44
Need a feeding plan e.g. Stotfold
Actual amounts depend on the number of piglets and age of sow
Hold all of them back for at least five days (some say longer).
PS: actually measure scoop
Example
Day
Stotfold
Sow with 12 piglets
0
<2.0
<2.0
1
2.0
2.5
2
2.5
3.0
3
3.0
3.5
4
3.5
4
5
4
4.5
6
5
5
7
6
5.5
Ad lib
6
8- wean
17
10
Creep feeding
For most litters, amount of milk produced by sow constrains
piglet growth from about 21 days
Feed creep to
1. Supplement litter where sow producing poorly
• milk replacer probably better than meal
• start early
2. To enable piglets to maintain maximum growth once
demand exceeds milk production by sow
• use creep meal
• start 2-3 weeks
Creep feeding
• Creep helps to save condition on sows
• Much creep eaten is substitution rather than supplementation
(in some studies the pigs offered creep weighed less than those not)
– Hopefully piglets will weigh more at weaning
• Allows piglets gut to adjust novel feed ingredients before
weaning
– Hopefully will weigh more two weeks after weaning
To get the most out of creep feeding
•
•
•
•
Feed must be as fresh as possible (put out little and often)
Must be good quality
Must have access to water
Better in good feeder
1. Don’t overfeed in early lactation (first 5 days)
2. It is worth investing in good quality lac sow
diet
3. Do everything possible to maximise intake
after ~5 days – keep food fresh, palatable,
feed more than once
4. Creep feeding is valuable but its value
depends on how well it is done