How can health management be done well during piglet weaning?
The health of piglets depends on many factors, so ensuring trouble-free healthy growth of piglets also depends on broader feed management measures.
Weaning is the most stressful event in a piglet's life. The piglet is separated from its biological sow and moved to another barn to be mixed with piglets from other litters; at the same time, the piglet must adapt from highly digestible sow's milk to a less digestible complex solid diet, and must learn to drink water and eat independently. The consequence of all these changes is that in the early weaning period, feed intake and weight gain of piglets decline, and some piglets do not eat at all within 48 hours after weaning.
Feed intake in the first week after weaning is the foundation for successful weaning of piglets. Early feed intake will directly affect the health of piglets and their growth performance during the fattening period. For weaned piglets to grow healthily, the following points should be done well:
1 Pre-weaning measures
It is extremely important for piglets to consume enough colostrum at birth to maintain body temperature and provide sufficient immunoglobulins. Each piglet should suckle at least 250 g to 300 g of colostrum. To achieve this goal, within 24 hours after birth, piglets are divided into two groups according to birth weight, a small-weight group and a large-weight group, and an alternate suckling method is used.
Piglets frequently learn to eat creep feed from the 4th to 5th day after birth, so that they can consume sufficient feed in the late lactation period
2 Palatability and digestibility
Among commercially available protein concentrates, plasma protein is a protein concentrate very suitable for newly weaned piglets and can promote feed intake in the critical first few days after weaning. Plasma protein promotes both growth performance and feed intake in piglets; compared with other protein sources (milk and plant protein sources), plasma can increase feed intake by at least 25%. Plasma can reduce mortality and the incidence of diarrhea in piglets.
3 Form and ratio
During weaning, piglets usually eat solid feed, but liquid feed can increase their feed intake and promote gut health. With liquid feed, it is necessary to ensure the cleanliness and hygiene of the feed and troughs and low microbial contamination, and to feed small amounts frequently. Compared with piglets fed a solid diet, piglets fed a liquid diet of the same composition increased body weight and average daily gain by 8% and 20% respectively.
The measure for the health status of piglets during weaning is to use highly palatable and digestible feed, and to feed an appropriate level of plasma in a suitable liquid form, so as to ensure the microbiological quality of the feed and that each piglet obtains the required daily feed intake after weaning, so as to achieve healthy growth of piglets.