The relationship between nursery growth performance and grow-finish growth performance has been said to be important but others have said there is no relationship. Traditionally it is assumed that nursery growth performance impacts a pig for its entire life, but recent studies suggest that reduced nursery performance from poor diets does not impact overall growth performance. A study using 96 pigs was conducted to prove the impact of the nursery diet. Pigs were put on one of four diets: complex (C; highly digestible ingredients) or simple (S; corn and soybean meal) with (A+) or without (A-) in-feed antibiotics. Pigs body weight, feed intake and feed efficiency were regularly recorded. Results show that feeding low complexity, and antibiotic-free feed compromises growth performance in the starter phase but induces compensatory growth afterwards and there are no long term effects into the grow-finish phase. Also days to market and carcass quality are not compromised. There is potential to reduce the complexity of starter feed, hence saving money, while still maintaining normal growth and carcass quality.