Feed International - July/August 2012 - 15
| 15 RelaTed SToRy: Piglet gut health linked to high feed intake, www.WATTAgNet.com/149996.html They noticed that approximately 26 percent of the piglets could not be classified as eater on any of the three sampling days, indicating that these piglets did not eat of the commonly fed pelleted pre-starter diet. Approximately 50 percent of the piglets were classified as eaters at one or two sampling days, which means that only 24 percent of the piglets were classified as eater on all three days and could be determined as good eaters. Therefore, it is not only important to increase the total feed intake of litters during the suckling period, but also to increase the number of eating piglets within litters. Trials by Schothorst Feed Research and 14 piglets at day five after birth. Growth rate was calculated for the total suckling period based on birth weight and weaning weight. In total 68 litters entered the trials. The results are shown in Table 2. In May 2011, Schothorst Feed Research tested two feeds: a commercial pelleted pre-starter diet and a new dairybased "ready-to-use" meal. Each diet was fed to a minimum of 30 litters from day five after birth until weaning at approximately 21-28 days. Litter sizes were between 11 C L E A N More eating piglets Prior to the 2011 tests, Schothorst C O N T R O Swivel Valve Cooler MkII No hollow spaces | No cross contamination Excellent cleaning access | Filtered air inlet Temperature control | Moisture control | Cleaning in Place Feed presentation and composition Diet presentation and diet composition are important factors to increase the number of eaters within litters. During the first weeks of life, the digestive tract of the piglets is adapted to digest nutrients like lactose, fat, and the milk proteins casein and whey (King and Pluske, 2003). Therefore, pre-starter diets preferably are composed of these nutrients and highly digestible feedstuffs should be used. To To reduce the mortality rate within litters it is important to get more piglets to eat. cool and dry clean and lean obtain a significant effect on growth rate, pre-starter diets should be highly concentrated considering the relatively low feed intake of the piglets. Also, the presentation of the diet can influence the feed intake of the piglets. Mash diets can be easily sampled by piglets and are more easily ingested than (hard) pellets. July/August 2012 | WATTAgNet.com L Geelen Counterflow info@geelencounterflow.com Holland / USA / Argentina / China www.geelencounterflow.com T +31-475-592315
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