Unit 10 - Creep feeding and Management and nutrition of the weaner Flashcards
(39 cards)
What is the objective of supplying creep feed?
- Ensure transition from sow’s milk to post-weaning diet smooth as possible without compromising growth or predisposing the young animal to disease
- Familiarize the piglet with smell, taste and physical form of feed that it will receive after weaning
- Development and adaptation of the digestive system
Actual milk intake of an individual piglet depends on:
- Milk production yield of sow
- Number of piglets sucking
- Size of individual piglets
- Stage of lactation
What major stress are the piglet subjected to at weaning?
- Environmental changes
- Physiological changes
- Digestive enzymes changes
- Body composition and weight changes
What are the negative effects on villi from weaning?
- changes from long slender to leaf shaped.
- varying degrees of atrophy
- height halved and crypt depth doubled.
Describe the enzymatic changes for a piglet being weaned from milk to cereals?
- Lactase activity decreases
- Amylase, lipase and protease increases
What are the pre-weaning factors influencing the performance of the suckling piglet?
- Water-intake: provide water immediately after birth
- Survival
- Colostrum intake
- Heavier piglets (higher weaning weight):
- Less susceptible to diarrhea
*Heavier piglets have higher FI = higher growth
*Better FCR during grower/finisher phases
*Less post-weaning growth lag
- Less susceptible to diarrhea
Name the 3 main benefits of creep feeding?
- Creep feeding helps the litter achieve genetic growth potential at whatever age weaning is desired
- Prolong the sow’s productive life
- Boost the sow’s immune competence
What are the benefits of creep feeding?
- Enhance immune system
- Better uniformity of piglets within a litter
- Fewer runts
- Less pre-weaning mortality
- Piglets tend to suckle less intensively meaning sows are in better condition after lactation – improve rebreeding success
What factors determines the replacing of a piglets liquid diet with solid diet?
- Piglet age
- Piglet weight
- Health status of piglets
What ingredient can be considered when formulating a pre-weaning supplementary feed?
- Milk products
- Casein
- Lactose
- Skimmed milk
- Whey powder or whey protein concentrate
- Cooked cereals
- Glucose
- High quality blood plasma
- Dried porcine enteric mucosal products
- Fish meal (steam dried)
What will happen when too high levels of lactose is included in a creep feed diet?
cause scouring
What is the inclusion persentage of lactose in a prestarter diet?
20%-30% lactose
What is the inclusion persentage of lactose in a starter diet?
10-12%
What is the inclusion persentage of lactose in a early grower diet?
no lactose inclusion
Why are plant proteins not well digested in a 28-day old piglet?
Gastric pH of the 28 day old piglet is between 3 and 4,
much higher than the optimum of 2.5-3 for pepsin activity
Why should soybean meal be limited in a creep feed?
1.Can cause an immune response to soybean protein
2. resulting in inflammation and villus atrophy
3. To reduce post weaning soy protein hypersensitivity
4. To aid in development of immunological tolerance for soya protein
How much fish meal can be included in a creep feed?
10%
what does NSP stand for?
Non-Starch Polysaccharides
What feed contains high amounts of NSP?
cereals like:
1. wheat
2. barley
What are the negative effects of high NSP in the creep feed diet?
- Can decrease digestibility by as much as 50%
- NSP can cause scouring as pathogens take advantage of insufficiently processed nutrients in the gut
What creep feed ingredients is considered to be expensive but essential?
- Egg protein powder
- Nucleotides (forerunners of amino-acids)
- Refined milk by-products
- Specialized fats and oils
- Specially protected vitamins
- Bioplexed trace minerals
- Selected enzymes
What is creep feed form qualities to consider?
- Pellets must not be too large, too hard or too soft
- Ideally you should just be able to crush pellet between fingers and thumb
- Meal has high wastage and dust (fines) and form hard crusts around the mouth
- Wetting of meal can help but a very high and consistent level of cleanliness is needed to avoid scouring
Name qualities of placement of the creep feed dispenser
- Must be easily accessible by the stockperson, avoiding unnecessary entry into the pen
- Never under a heat lamp, on a heated floor pad or inside a warm covered creep area
- Away from area where sow urinates
- Far out of reach of the sow
- Not too far away from the piglets separate water source
- Must be difficult to shift by the piglets
- Ensure they are well lit (100 lux)
What are the objectives of post-weaning period?
- Minimize unavoidable post weaning stress
- Minimize post-weaning dip
- Minimize mortalities
- Optimized daily gain (growth)
