Impact of multiple suckling of litters during lactation on pre-weaning piglet performance

Multiple suckling involves the grouping together of sows and litters such that piglets can potentially access teats on all of the sows in the group. Historically, multiple suckling involved moving the group of sows and litters into large pens. More recently, there has been interest in an approach to multiple suckling that involves leaving the sows in crates in farrowing accommodation and removing the dividers between the farrowing pens. It has been proposed that such an approach could improve piglet weight gain and reduce piglet mortality during lactation. The objective of the study reported in this thesis was to evaluate the effects of multiple- compared to single-suckling (piglets having access to only one sow) on pre-weaning performance of the piglets. The study was carried out in a commercial farrowing facility that consisted of pens with farrowing crates that were designed to house one sow and litter. A randomized complete block design (blocking factors were farrowing date, sow parity, body condition score, and number of functional teats) was used to compare 2 treatments: 1) Control (sow and litter kept in an individual farrowing crate/pen); 2) Multiple Suckled (group of 3 sows and litters kept in 1 group). The Multiple Suckled treatment was created at 5 days after birth by removing the pen dividers between 3 adjacent farrowing pens with the sows remaining in the farrowing crates. A total of 210 sows and litters (2950 piglets) were used, representing 36 replicates of 6 sows (3 litters on each treatment). The study started at 5 days after birth and ended when the piglets were weaned (at 19 ± 2 days of age). Piglet weights were collected at birth and weaning and piglet mortalities were recorded. Data were analyzed using the glmer and lmer functions of R with the model including the fixed effect of treatment and the random effect of block. There were no differences (P > 0.05) between the treatments for pre-weaning growth rate (195 and 191 g/day, SEM 0.01, for the Control and Multiple Suckled treatments, respectively) or pre-weaning mortality (13.5 and 13.9 %, SEM 0.01, respectively). These results suggest no benefit from using multiple suckling of litters under the conditions of the study for the pre-weaning performance of piglets.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.S.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Animal Sciences

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Gainey, Noah Christopher

Contributors dc:contributor

• Ellis, Michael

• Multiple Suckling
• Piglets

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Noah Gainey

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/121542

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F121542