Abstract
Feeding fibre and branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) to sows during late gestation and lactation, respectively, have been shown to improve litter weights at weaning. Therefore, supplementing primiparous sow diets with lucerne chaff, a feedstuff high in fibre, BCAA and tryptophan, may improve the performance of their progeny. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of feeding primiparous sows (n = 118) either (i) a control diet (CON); (ii) CON with 1 kg of lucerne chaff (LUC); or (iii) a diet formulated to have a similar digestible energy and BCAA content as CON + LUC (SIMLUC 1) until farrowing. The LUC and SIMLUC 1 diets improved day 21 litter weight (p = 0.055). In Experiment 2 primiparous (n = 111) and multiparous sows (parities 2–5, n = 112) were fed either the CON or SIMLUC diet (SIMLUC 2) from day 110 of gestation to farrowing (PreF), or to day 10 post-farrowing (PreF + PostF). The SIMLUC 2 diet tended to be more beneficial to primiparous compared to multiparous sows when fed PreF, as indicated by an interaction between diet and parity on day 21 average piglet weights (p = 0.078). Overall, SIMLUC is most effective in improving primiparous progeny performance as evidenced by their D21 weights.
Highlights
Progeny of the primiparous sow are often characterised by their low birth and weaning weights, slow growth and higher rates of morbidity and mortality in comparison to those from multiparous sows [1,2,3]
Litters born to sows on the control diet (CON) diet tended to have lower day 21 (D21) litter weights than
Average piglet weights were lower when born to sows fed the CON diet than those fed the lucerne chaff (LUC) and SIMLUC 1 diets (4.69 vs. 4.89 and 5.12, respectively, p = 0.029) at D21 (Table 3)
Summary
Progeny of the primiparous sow (gilt progeny; GP) are often characterised by their low birth and weaning weights, slow growth and higher rates of morbidity and mortality in comparison to those from multiparous sows (sow progeny; SP) [1,2,3]. The inclusion of dietary fibres in late gestation diets has been reported to increase feed intake of sows during lactation, and is mostly attributed to the effects on the gastrointestinal capacity of the dam [5]. Quesnel et al [6] reported an increased feed intake and piglet weight at weaning in primiparous sows when fed a diet containing 12.4% crude fibre, which increased the content of both soluble and insoluble fibres, between day 26 of gestation and farrowing. Edwards et al [8] reported an improvement in sow welfare during farrowing and throughout lactating when 1 kg of lucerne chaff, a soluble fibrous forage high in branch-chained amino acids (BCAA), and tryptophan, was given daily
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