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Industry Partners
Prairie Swine Centre is an affiliate of the University of Saskatchewan
Prairie Swine Centre is grateful for the assistance of the George Morris Centre in developing the economics portion of Pork Insight.
Financial support for the Enterprise Model Project and Pork Insight has been provided by:
Early nursery nutrition
Posted in: Nutrition, Pork Insight Articles by admin on June 5, 2017
Every producers approach to nutritional programs may be slightly different to reach maximum profitability. One commonality across strategies during the early nursery phase is to facilitate the adjustment pigs must go through during the transition from sow milk to solid feed. Optimal intake of the right nutrients stimulates a healthy gut for long term effective nutrient absorption while reducing the incidence of post-weaning diarrhea.
Around the time of weaning, the digestive tract undergoes radical changes in physiology, microbiology and immunology. Such as:
- Increased stomach PH
- Decreased lactase and other pancreatic enzymes 3-5 days post weaning
- Gastric motility and stomach emptying are reduced
- Decreased villus height and increased crypt depth
- Intestinal permeability is increased
- Reduction in net absorption of fluids and electrolytes
- Crypt cell numbers are decreased in the large intestine
- barrier function and active absorption are decreased when pigs are weaned at 3 or less weeks of age
The nutritional program for weaned pigs should be designed to match the pigs digestive development at each stage by providing highly palatable and digestible ingredients that encourage feed intake and result in maximum performance.