Raspberry flavour improves feed intake The assumption was that increasing piglets’ exploratory be- haviour will increase feed intake. Therefore a second trial was set up to confirm that hypothesis. The set-up was similar to the first preference trial: 40 animals randomly allocated to four pens. That was a free choice trial that lasted seven days. Animals had access to the same feed choices as for the first trial. Piglets were fed ad libitum and water was freely availa- ble. Daily feed intake was weighed and recorded per treat- ment and per pen. Feed intake (see Figure 2) followed the same trend as prefer- ence in the previous trial: intake was indeed higher for the raspberry-flavoured feed than for the milk-flavoured feed. In- take also increased throughout the trial, in line with previous observations; that is, piglets became increasingly curious about the raspberry flavour. Those results are consistent with the observations of the first trial regarding preference, and they validate the hypothesis that stimulating exploratory behaviour is a good way to increase feed intake.
Improving pig performance A third trial was performed in order to validate the effect of a higher intake on piglet performance. It was an imposed choice set-up. In total, 96 piglets were randomly divided into two groups: each group had access to one feed only (either milk flavour or rasp- berry flavour); each group was then subdi- vided into four different pens of 12 animals each. The researchers recorded the piglets’ initial and final
Table 1 – Summary of all pairwise comparisons for the treatment.
Raspberry 2.933 Milk flavoured
Treatment P value
2.702 0.010
BWG (kg) BW (kg) 35.200 32.425 0.010
FI (kg) 45.083 41.950 0.003
FCR
1.281 1.295 0.624
weights; they measured feed intake and average daily weight gain and calculated feed conversion ratio (FCR). The trial lasted 14 days. Results on feed intake were similar to the previous free choice trial; average cumu- lated feed intake was higher for the raspberry-flavoured feed than for the milk-fla- voured feed. Piglets thus once again showed a preference for the raspberry-fla- voured feed with an improvement in feed consumption. This significantly higher feed intake was associated with a significantly higher aver- age body weight gain and a significantly higher final body weight in the case of raspberry-flavoured feed. FCR was numerically improved in the case of raspberry- flavoured feed.
Improving feed intake Flavours with more volatile molecules may be a good incentive to encourage exploratory be- haviour in piglets. The raspberry flavour consistently improves feed intake com- pared to milk-flavoured feed in free choice trials as well as in imposed choice trials. The higher feed intake obtained with the raspberry flavour results in better performance of the animals, with higher body weight gain as well as higher final body weight of the piglets.
References available upon request.
Figure 2 - Feed intake in free choice trial (left hand) and imposed choice trial (right hand).
Average cumulated feed intake (g)
12,000 10,000 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 0
FEED INTAKE FREE CHOICE TRIAL a b a, b: P < 0.05
Average cumulated feed intake (g)
2,000 1,800 1,600 1,400 1,200 1,000
200 400 600 800
0 MILKY FLAVOUR RASPBERRY MILKY FLAVOUR RASPBERRY ▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 7, 2020 29 FEED INTAKE FREE CHOICE TRIAL a b a, b: P < 0.05
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