WEANER RATION

Weaners

Weaning is the most stressful period in a pig’s life, so alter the diet as gradually as possible because any sudden changes will reduce performance.

Intake in first few days after weaning is key. Offer the same diet as fed pre-weaning for approximately a week or until the animal is about 9kg, as this will keep growth checks to a minimum.

“There are already lots of changes going on for the pig, so using the same creep immediately post-weaning will provide some constancy and the ingredients will help mimic the nutrition the piglet gained at suckling,” Dr Baynes says.

He advises that the ration is revised up to three times over the course of the weaner phase, he says.

“Most producers use two if not three rations from 40kg to 115kg liveweight, tweaking these as the pig’s need for the more expensive components in the ration – the ingredients providing energy and protein – reduces.”

From weaning to 15kg liveweight, the digestible energy (DE) requirement is typically about 16 megajoules (MJ) per kilogramme (kg), reducing to 14.8MJ/kg or lower in the so-called “link diet”, the ration that bridges the specialist starter nutrition to compound or home-mix diets.

This will depend on individual systems, such as the genetic leanness of the breed, environment, feed-consumption patterns and carcass characteristics.

“Immediately post-weaning, pigs need a diet that is very rich in protein and energy. The initial diet should replicate maternal milk as much as possible and typically contains milk powder and fish oil. Therefore, this first phase diet is the most expensive,” says Dr Baynes.

Feeding milk replacer for a short period after weaning can be beneficial to piglet growth and gut health.