Intermittent suckling with or without co-mingling of non-littermate piglets before weaning improves piglet performance in the immediate post-weaning period when compared with conventional weaning

Diana L.Turpin; Pieter Langendijk; Kate Plush; John R.Pluske

摘要

Background:In this experiment,intermittent suckling (IS) with or without the co-mingling (CoM) of piglets was studied as a method to stimulate solid feed intake and reduce post-weaning stress.Methods:Three weaning regimes using 30 multiparous sows were compared:(1) conventional weaning (CW)(n =10 litters),where piglets had continuous access to the sow until weaning (d 0,farrowing =d-25 relative to weaning);(2) intermittent suckling (IS) (n =10 litters),where piglets were separated from the sow for 8 h/d starting at d-7 (relative to weaning);and (3) intermittent suckling with co-mingling (ISCo) (n =10 litters) where IS started at d-7 and two litters were housed together during separation and then returned to their original sow.Ad libitum creep feed was available from d-17.At weaning pigs were housed in pens of 11 pigs,27 pens in total.The ISCo treatment was divided in half to examine effects of different mixing strategies after weaning.Half of the ISCo litters were kept in familiar groups (ISCoF,familiar,n =4) and the other half were mixed within treatment resulting in groups of unfamiliar pigs (ISCoNF,not familiar,n =S),the same as IS (n =9) and CW (n =9) treatments.Results:The ISCo piglets ate more creep feed in the week before weaning (P＜ 0.01),but also showed more aggressive and manipulative behaviour on first day of CoM compared with CW piglets (P ＜ 0.05).IS with or without CoM increased exploratory and play behaviour on the first day of treatment intervention (P ＜ 0.001) and increased sleeping behaviour on the last day of treatment intervention compared with CW (P ＜ 0.001).Mixing strategy at weaning had an effect on performance data with the highest growth and feed intake seen in ISCoF pigs 2 to 8 d after weaning (P ＜0.001).IS and ISCoNF pigs also grew faster and ate more than CW pigs 2 to 8 d after weaning (P ＜ 0.001).Post-weaning injury scores suggested reduced aggression in ISCo as evidenced by reduced redness (skin irritation) (P＜ 0.05),and a tendency for ISCo to have less scratches than CW (P＜ 0.1).The IS pigs slept the most and displayed less manipulative behaviours on the day of weaning and plasma haptoglobin levels remained low in IS pigs after weaning (P≤ 0.01).Conclusions:Both intermittent suckling techniques improved production indices in the immediate post-weaning period.However,the addition of co-mingling before weaning in combination with grouping familiar pigs together after weaning improved performance in an additive manner.

机译：背景：在本实验中，研究了有或没有仔猪混交（CoM）的间歇哺乳（IS）作为刺激固体饲料摄入并降低断奶后应激的方法。方法：采用30头多头母猪的三种断奶方案比较：（1）常规断奶（CW）（n = 10窝），其中仔猪可以连续接触母猪直到断奶（d 0，相对于断奶的分娩= d-25）;（2）间歇哺乳（IS）（（n = 10窝），其中小猪从d-7开始相对于母猪分离8 h / d（相对于断奶）;和（3）混合哺乳（ISCo）的间歇哺乳（n = 10窝），其中IS从第7天开始，在分离过程中将两个窝一起放在一起，然后放回原来的母猪。从第17天开始可以随意采食蠕动饲料。在断奶仔猪中圈养11头猪，总共27头。断奶后将处理分成两半，以检查不同混合策略的效果。 ps（ISCoF，familiar，n = 4）和另一半在治疗中混合在一起，从而导致一组不熟悉的猪（ISCoNF，不熟悉，n = S），与IS（n = 9）和CW（n = 9）相同结果：ISCo仔猪断奶前一周的creep饲料更多（P ＜0.01），但与CW仔猪（P ＜0.05）相比，CoM第一天表现出更强的攻击性和操纵性。与CW相比，CoM在治疗干预的第一天增加了探索性行为和游戏行为（P ＜0.001），而在治疗干预的最后一天增加了睡眠行为（P ＜0.001）。断奶后2至8 d的ISCoF猪的生长和采食量最高（P ＜0.001）。断奶后2到8 d的IS和ISCoNF猪的生长和进食也比连续性猪快（P ＜0.001）。得分表明，红肿（皮肤刺激）减少（P ＜0.05）可证明ISCo的侵略性降低（P ＜0.05） SCo比CW划伤少（P ＜0.1）。IS猪断奶当天睡眠最多，表现出较少的操作行为，断奶后IS猪血浆触珠蛋白水平仍然较低（P≤0.01）。哺乳技术改善了断奶后立即的生产指标。但是，断奶前添加混合饲料与断奶后将熟悉的猪分组在一起可以提高性能。

Intermittent suckling with or without co-mingling of non-littermate piglets before weaning improves piglet performance in the immediate post-weaning period when compared with conventional weaning

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