Encouraging piglets to eat more creep feed


Consuming creep feed can help piglets to successfully bridge the gap from milk to solid feed at weaning. However, some piglets eat more creep feed than others. Is it possible to learn from that behaviour? And can creep feed consumption be encouraged by appealing to their desire to explore? Researchers at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands put this to the test.


BY ANOUSCHKA MIDDELKOOP*, WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY & RESEARCH, THE NETHERLANDS


D Variable


ADFI, day 0-15, g/piglet/day ADG, day 0-15, g/piglet/day FCR, day 0-15


Body weight at day 15, kg Diarrhoea, days/pen


ue to many factors, weaning often leads to a low feed (energy) intake, gastro-intestinal problems, gut microbiota dysbiosis, reduced growth and be- havioural disturbances after weaning, thereby re-


ducing health and welfare. Stimulating the consumption of solid feed prior to weaning, i.e. creep feeding, may improve piglet adaptation after weaning, but factors influencing creep feed intake in piglets are unclear up to now. Recent research at Wageningen University and Research in the Netherlands focused on two potentially impacting factors in getting piglets to eat creep feed. They wondered whether a low energy intake from milk, by means of maternal feed restriction, would make a difference. And they also aimed to establish the effect of presenting creep feed in an exploratory


Table 1 – Post-weaning performance (day 0-15 post-weaning) of the four groups studied. The play-feeder improved all the variables, except for feed efficiency (FCR). Feed restriction of the sow only tended to improve post-weaning ADG.


Restrictedly-fed sows


358 305


288 246


Full-fed sows


Control feeder Play-feeder Control feeder Play-feeder 311 261


332 281


1,20 1,17 1,16 1,19 9,73


10,63


% of pens with ≥1 day watery diarrhoea 44,4 Faecal consistency score Body lesions at day 15


10,35 77,8 4,8


2,78 2,00 3,22 1,44 22,2


0,23 0,16 0,28 0,10 4,7


3,0 3,3


Source: Adjusted from Middelkoop and others, Feed intake of the sow and playful creep feeding of piglets (2019).


6 ▶ WEANING | JUNE 2020 10,51 11,1


and playful context by means of a foraging-stimulating play- feeder. The study was set up with two different sow feeding strate- gies and two piglet feeding strategies prior to weaning, lead- ing to eventually four ‘experimental paths’ piglets could have taken. During the trial, the scientists carefully monitored their characteristics, being piglet growth; piglet behaviours; which animals were the creep feed eaters and what was the piglets’ feed intake; body lesions and damage on piglets; and faecal consistency scores of piglets.


Sow feeding strategies All sows were fed the same level of commercially available sow diet until day 9 post-partum. From day 10 post-partum on- wards, sows were fed in three feedings and received either… • 6.5 kg feed per day (full-fed, 19 sows); or • 3.25 kg feed per day (restrictedly-fed, 18 sows). That created a contrast in energy supply from milk. The milk production of sows on a restrictive diet was indeed lower compared to full-fed sows, at least between day 17-24 of lac- tation, and the milk of restrictedly-fed sows contained a low- er percentage of fat. Moreover, the restrictedly-fed sows lost more body weight between day 10-24 than full-fed sows.


Piglet feeding strategies From day 4 after birth, the litters were either creep-fed… • in a round conventional feeder (18 litters, equally divided over the two sow groups); or


• in a foraging-stimulating ‘play-feeder’ (19 litters, 10 with full-fed sows, 9 with restrictedly-fed sows).


The play-feeder was created by attaching canvas clothes, braided natural cotton ropes and PVC spiral tubes to the con- ventional feeder. Two days prior to weaning, the creep feed was mixed with a nursery diet to familiarise piglets to the nursery diet before weaning. At weaning at roughly 24 days of age, a subset of 144 piglets was relocated in two weaner rooms in two batches; they were


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