274 Effects of Feeding Levels in Early Gestation on PIC Camborough Sows and Litter Performance

Abstract

Abstract Our objective was to determine the effects of increasing feeding levels for PIC Camborough sows during early gestation on sow and litter performance. A total of 636 sows (PIC Camborough) were randomly assigned at weaning to 1 of 4 treatments that were balanced for weight and caliper scores within parity categories. Treatments consisted of feeding sows with daily feed allowances to meet 85, 115, 145, or 175% of the NRC (2012) maintenance metabolizable energy (MEm) requirement calculated as MEm, kcal/d = 100 × (body weight, kg)0.75. A common corn-soybean meal-distillers dried grains with solubles-based diet with 3,092 kcal of ME/kg and 0.64% standardized ileal digestible lysine was used. Treatments were applied from d 6 to 35 of gestation, after which sows were moved to gestation pens and fed according to body condition through an electronic sow feeder until moved to the farrowing room. Sow was the experimental unit and data were analyzed using generalized linear mixed models with the lmer and glmer functions of R. On average, females were ideal condition at weaning across treatment as determined by the caliper scores. Average feed allowances were 1.6, 2.1, 2.6, and 3.2 kg/day for the 85, 115, 145, and 175% treatments, respectively. Increasing feed allowances reduced (linear, P< 0.05) body weight loss (-13.8, -10.3, -4.7 and -0.5 kg, respectively) and increased caliper score gain (-0.43, -0.03, 0.64, 0.76 units, respectively) from weaning to d 35 of gestation. There was no evidence for treatment effects on farrowing rate, total born, stillborn rate, average litter weight, piglet throughput, or subsequent reproductive performance. In summary, increasing feed allowances to meet 85 to 175% of the MEm requirements during early gestation on Camborough sows resulted in a reduction in body weight loss and an improvement in caliper gain until d 35 of gestation without evidence of impact in reproductive performance.