Abstract
BackgroundThe aim of this study was to determine how maternal undernutrition during pregnancy and offspring birth-weight can affect the postnatal development of offspring under farm conditions, which may lead to consequences in its meat and carcass quality. The current study involved a total of 80 litters from Iberian sows fed a diet fulfilling daily requirements (n = 47; control) or providing 70% daily requirements (n = 33; underfed) from d 38 to d 90 of gestation when fetal tissue development begins. After birth, piglets born live were classified as low birth-weight (LBW; < 1 kg) and normal birth-weight (NBW; ≥1 kg). During the growing phase, 240 control and 230 underfed pigs (50% males and females) distributed by BW category and sex were studied until the slaughter.ResultsAt birth and weaning, there were significant differences in all morphological measures and weight between NBW and LBW piglets as expected (P < 0.0005), but few effects of the gestational feed restriction. During the growing phase, NBW pigs continued with higher weight than LBW pigs on all the days of evaluation (P < 0.05), even though control-LBW-females and LBW-males showed a catch-up growth. However, underfed pigs showed slower growth and higher feed conversion ratio than control pigs (P < 0.0001) at 215 days old. Moreover, the average daily weight gain (ADWG) for the overall period was greater for NBW, male and control pigs than for their LBW, female and underfed pigs (P < 0.0001, P< 0.0005 and P< 0.05, respectively) and NBW pigs were slaughtered at a younger age than LBW pigs (P < 0.0001). After slaughtering, control pigs also had higher carcass yield and backfat depth than underfed pigs (P < 0.0005) and the maternal nutritional effect caused main changes in the polar lipid fraction of liver and loin. The fatty acid composition of loin in control pigs had higher C18:1n-9 and n-3 FA concentrations, as well as lower ∑n-6/∑n-3 ratio, than in underfed pigs (P < 0.005).ConclusionsIn brief, results showed that the effects of maternal nutritional restriction appeared and increased with offspring age, causing worse developmental patterns for underfed pigs than for control pigs.
Highlights
The aim of this study was to determine how maternal undernutrition during pregnancy and offspring birth-weight can affect the postnatal development of offspring under farm conditions, which may lead to consequences in its meat and carcass quality
The implementation of feeding strategies based on maternal feed restriction for lowering production costs in modern breeds has been found to be related to a higher rate of Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) processes and low birthweight (LBW) piglets [2, 8]
Weight was higher in normal birth-weight (NBW) than in LBW piglets at birth (1.4 ± 0.2 vs. 0.8 ± 0.2 kg, respectively) and weaning (5.6 ± 1.2 vs. 4.3 ± 1.1 kg; P < 0.0001 for both)
Summary
The aim of this study was to determine how maternal undernutrition during pregnancy and offspring birth-weight can affect the postnatal development of offspring under farm conditions, which may lead to consequences in its meat and carcass quality. Modern swine production (mainly located in Europe, USA, Brazil, China and other countries from Southeast Asia) is based on highly-selected genotypes (mostly originated from Landrace, Large-White and Pietrain breeds) reared in large farms generating value-for-money fresh pork products. In addition to this intensive production, Vázquez-Gómez et al Journal of Animal Science and Biotechnology (2018) 9:27 products their smooth texture and outstanding taste. The increasing demand for dry-cured ham and other gourmet products is transforming the traditional extensive farming of these pigs into more intensive systems, with management practices directly implemented from modern breeds; mainly at the reproductive (aiming to increase the number of piglets/litter) and nutritional levels (imitating feeding strategies). The same has been found in the Iberian pig [9, 10]
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