Pigs Like It Varied; Feeding Behavior and Pre- and Post-weaning Performance of Piglets Exposed to Dietary Diversity and Feed Hidden in Substrate During Lactation.

ABSTRACT: Timely intake of solid feed is essential to ease the nutritional change from sow's milk to solid feed at weaning and thereby to reduce weaning-related problems. A significant percentage of piglets, however, do not or hardly consume solid feed before weaning. We studied effects of dietary variety and presenting the feed in substrate during lactation on the feeding behavior and performance of piglets up to 2 weeks post-weaning. Feed was provided ad libitum from d4 in two feeders, with four bowls each. In a 2 × 2 arrangement, 40 litters received either creep feed as a monotonous diet (MO) or four feed items simultaneously, i.e., creep feed, celery, cereal honey loops and peanuts, as a diverse diet (DD) and the feed was either provided without (CON) or with substrate (SUB), i.e., sand, in one

SUBMITTER: Middelkoop A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6877737 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature