Abstract
Weaning is a stressful event for piglets, involving substantial changes to their nutritional and social environment. Providing edible enrichment around weaning may ease the weaning transition by increasing pre-weaning feed intake and improving post-weaning performance, health, behavior, and affective state. In this study, we investigated the effects of providing live black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as edible enrichment pre- and/or post-weaning. Pre-weaning, piglets received either only creep feed (Pre-C, n = 14 litters) or creep feed and live BSFL (Pre-L, n = 15 litters) ad libitum, and post-weaning piglets either had no access to live BSFL (Post-C, n = 24 pens) or they could rotate tubes that released BSFL (Post-L, n = 24 pens) at levels up to 20% of their expected daily dry matter intake, resulting in treatments CC, CL, LC, and LL. No interaction between pre- and post-weaning treatment was found for any of the measured parameters. Before weaning, Pre-L piglets preferred to interact with larvae over creep feed, and Pre-C piglets interacted more with creep feed than Pre-L piglets. Total time spent on feed-directed behaviors did not differ. Continuous larvae provisioning increased caecum length and proximal stomach digesta pH, while it decreased the passage of glucose and fluorescein isothiocyanate through the colon wall on d3 post-weaning (CC vs. LL, n = 12 piglets/treatment). Post-weaning diarrhea and final body weight were not affected by treatment. After weaning, Pre-C piglets tended to eat more and grew marginally faster than Pre-L piglets. Post-C piglets spent more time eating and had a higher feed intake post-weaning than Post-L piglets. Based on home-pen behavioral observations, Post-L piglets actively explored and ate the larvae. Post-C piglets spent more time on exploring the environment and nosing pen mates, and they spent more time on manipulating pen mates on d8 and played more on d8 & 15 compared to Post-L piglets. Piglet responses to a novel environment and an attention bias test on d4 & 5 post-weaning were not influenced by larvae provisioning. In conclusion, pre-weaning larvae provisioning did not improve pre-weaning feed intake and post-weaning performance, however post-weaning larvae provisioning did benefit piglet behavior as less manipulation of pen mates was observed.
Highlights
Weaning is a critical period for commercially housed piglets
Similar results were found for the behavioral observations, where the percentage of creep feed eaters per litter was higher in the pre-weaning treatment (Pre)-C treatment on d8, 22 and 27, and it tended to be higher on d15 (Figure 2C)
We investigated the effect of providing piglets with live black soldier fly larvae (BSFL) as edible enrichment during the pre- and/or 3 weeks post-weaning period
Summary
Weaning is a critical period for commercially housed piglets. Under natural conditions weaning is a gradual process lasting several months [1, 2], whereas commercial weaning often takes place abruptly when piglets are 3–4 weeks old. As a result all weaning-related stressors, including separation from the sow, switching from a milk to a concentrate diet, relocation to a new environment, and often mixing with unfamiliar conspecifics, occur acutely and simultaneously, intensifying the stress experienced by newly weaned piglets [3, 4]. At this young age, piglets tend to have little to no experience with eating solid (creep) feed, and pre-weaning feed intake varies markedly between piglets and litters [5,6,7,8]. The combined challenges of early and abrupt weaning diminish the welfare of newly weaned pigs and can have long-term ramifications for pig performance and health [13, 22]
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