FARM VISIT ▶▶▶
The piglets with the best appearance have been selected to occupy the pens next to the windows. These pens might be slightly more influenced by weather changes – the idea is that the strongest will be able to deal with it better.
productivity. He opted for a different solution, that is, to use low levels of antibiotics if a piglet displayed some diarrhoea. He says, “It is funny; the young piglets’ faeces turn black when you don’t supply zinc oxide. Normally they would be brown. What we see now is that without zinc oxide and all the pre- ventive measures, after 4.5 days some piglets will still develop diarrhoea. That is when we use a little bit of amoxicillin – but we still remain well within the boundaries of Danish legisla- tion.” Rold also notices that the smell of the piglets’ faeces is different since he stopped using zinc oxide. As soon as the six-month initial trial with Vilomix was over, Rold returned to using zinc oxide, if only to figure out whether it would make any difference. In his case, the farm’s weaner pigs used to achieve 465 g/day of growth when still using zinc
oxide. Then, after the 360 degree inspection, plus improve- ment steps but still without zinc oxide, daily gain went up to 472. When he temporarily chose to return to zinc oxide after- wards, the result went up further to 509 g/day, which for Rold only proved that for a long time obvious improvement points had been overlooked. The trial project showed that in many farms, a dedicated programme instead of zinc oxide could lead to similar or even slightly better results. Financially, Rold says, the programme doesn’t have any sig- nificant implications. “I don’t believe that there is a huge dif- ference as long as the quality of your piglets is good. The feed cost is approximately DKK 1 (€ 0.13) extra per piglet when zinc oxide is substituted with the more expensive starter feed.”
Not using zinc oxide in weaner feed leads to much darker faeces. As the picture shows, diarrhoea did occur as well.
Experience, insights and knowledge All in all, Rold says, the cooperation has brought him a lot of experience, insights and knowledge about where more improvement can be achieved. “I think the results are even a little bit better than they used to be. We do pay a lot more attention to the weaner pigs. We already used to make sure that the sows got as much attention as they needed; now we are also doing that for the weaner pigs as much as possible.” So perhaps there are other challenges coming his way, but zinc oxide? “That’s easy. This hurdle I have taken. One problem less to worry about this summer.”
▶ PIG PROGRESS | Volume 38, No. 4, 2022
www.pigprogress.net/ worldofpigs
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