How the sow is fed leading up to farrowing can have an impact of milk production.
And it follows that the amount of colostrum in the milk which has a great influence on piglet health and that helps start good growth through lactation.
Recent research by Dr. Chantal Farmer, of Agriculture and Agri-food Canada’s (AAFC) Sherbrooke Research and Development Centre, has revealed that the body condition of a sow in late gestation is a consideration in piglet health. Therefore the amount of food a sow eats during pregnancy affects her mammary development, hence how much milk she will produce to feed her babies.
Dr. Farmer has spent the last 30-years researching sow lactation and studying factors that can impact the weight gain of piglets.
Dr. Farmer’s study has shown that ensuring piglets have enough milk is key to healthy growth. This can be a challenge for sows that have large litters. (Today the average sow produces 10 piglets at weaning as opposed to nine in 2014.) The nutrition of a sow can greatly affect gestation and lactation.
Improving hog feed management can help. In her latest work Farmer has been looking at mammary development in the sows, The reasoning being the greater the number of milk secretory cells present at the onset of lactation, the greater the milk production. The development of milk secretory tissue can be influenced by feed intake.
“There is a relationship between the BODY condition of the sow while pregnant and the extent of her mammary development, which will then effect growth rate of her suckling piglets. It is therefore important for producers to monitor fatness of their sows,” said Farmer.
Sows must eat maximally during lactation to increase the amount of milk they produce. Results however showed that for ultimate milk production, feeding sows properly leading up to farrowing also plays an important role.
Farmer said it’s not a case where producers should provide enough feed for a sow to become overly fat.
“Obese sows produce less milk,” said Farmer. But they do need to farrow in good condition. “We are working on the body condition of the animal at the end of gestation,” said Farmer, suggesting that is best determined by backfat measurement.
As a guideline Farmer said Yorkshire X Landrace, (it may vary according to breed), sows with 21 mm of backfat, or more would be considered fat. Twelve-to-15 mm is a sow which is generally too thin.
Depending on body condition Farmer said producers should look at the potential “to feed them differently during gestation.”
Farmer said sows in optimum condition through gestation produce more of the mammary cells which are the key to milk production.
The most critical timeframe for optimum feeding of the sow based on ensuring optimum body conditioning at farrowing is day 90 of gestation through to farrowing. “It’s the period of rapid mammary development where you can have an impact,” said Farmer. While Farmer said more research is required, it is not a case of the sow requiring a high energy feed in late gestation.
“Protein may have an effect,” she said, adding two different research efforts have shown differing results.
Flax may also be a good feed additive for sows as it has some estrogenic compounds, said Farmer.
These days Dr. Farmer continues with the next step in her research aiming at developing the optimal feeding regime to ensure optimal mammary development of gestating and growing gilts. •
— By Calvin Daniels
