Teach piglets As Soon As Possible after birth how to drink water!
These days, a consensus on supplementary feeding for young piglets has been found. If all piglets would consume and digest a solid diet before weaning, fewer problems would occur around weaning. However, up till today this is unfortunately not the case.
The total milk yield of a sow is depending on many factors (breed, feed, condition, etc.). Litter size has a positive effect on milk yield too because the piglets stimulate production. Trials have indicated that a sows’ milk yield during the first week is sufficient to feed all her piglets*. However, when problems occur during the onset of lactation or with sows with very large litters (> 14 piglets), providing artificial milk earlier on may be necessary.
Supplementary feeding of piglets before weaning has two major goals; providing extra growth and getting the piglet used to a solid diet. For the most part, it’s still the sow that determines the piglets’ growth. The total amount of supplementary feed used per piglet remains rather limited in comparison to the sow’s milk yield. Not to mention the difference in quality, digestibility and price between sow’s milk and any other type of feed.
The second and most important goal of supplementary feeding is to teach piglets to consume and digest solid diets before weaning. Up to 25 - 40% (depending of the weaning age) of the weaned piglets have not ever ingested a solid diet before weaning and will therefore experience major problems.* Providing artificial milk products before weaning will slightly increase the weaning weight but it won’t have any effect on the swift uptake of solid diets immediately after weaning
Before a piglet learns how to eat, it must learn how to drink water. Sufficient feed uptake without water intake is virtually impossible. The importance for piglets to learn how to drink water through a feed bowl may be clear. With Basdiar, they learn this with ease. The specific scent stimulates the piglets to root. From a very early age they absorb iron, which is missing in milk.
The water in Basdiar prevents the newborns from dehydration in the absence of milk. This has a positive effect on the pre-weaning mortality. Continuous and systematic use of Basdiar shows a reduction in mortality of up to 2.5%. (Click here for more tests)
Piglets gradually learn how to eat with Basdiar. They receive the most time to learn how to consume and digest a solid diet. It prepares them as well as possible for weaning. The total feed intake in the 1st week post-weaning determines 40% of the growth rate in the nursery. *
Discover for yourself what Lianol Basdiar can contribute to your farm. For additional information or orders, contact your veterinarian or Ardol: info@ardol.nl
Do you want to know more about managing your sows and piglets around birth? Ardol is happy to give you comprehensive advice about management around farrowing.
*for extra info on the used sources you can contact us on: info@ardol.nl"
