Nutrição de leitões neonatos: importância da suplementação

Abstract

The swine industry has shown a great technological progress during the last years, especially due to major advances in genetics. A higher number of piglets produced per litter and lower individual weights has been observed, which increased health challenges. The increasing litter size also reduces uniformity at birth by increasing the frequency of small piglets, which can increase the competition between littermates for colostrum and milk. In addition, all piglets have the natural challenge of facing the control of thermoregulation, having low reserves of glucose and fat at birth. This makes piglets rely almost exclusively on colostrum and milk intake for their survival. These factors may lead to an increase in piglet mortality, which mainly occurs in the first three days of life and represents one of the biggest issues facing the pork industry. The supply of energy sources becomes important in order to enhance the immunity development and the performance of young piglets. The purpose of this review is to present the potential use of different energy sources to promote adequate supplementation, reducing mortality and improving the performance of newborn piglets.