Our aim was to describe nursing behaviour, sow
\nactivity, sow use of body reserves and piglet growth and
\nthe relationship between these traits in gilts kept
\noutdoors. We conclude that in outdoor production, sow
\nappetite in early lactation affects piglet growth until
\nweaning at seven weeks. Sow nursing behaviour is not
\nimportant for piglet growth when sows and piglets are
\nheld outdoors in groups, piglets have access to sow feed
\nand piglets are weaned as late as at seven weeks of age.
\nSow nursing behaviour and activity are individual
\ncharacteristics repeatable within sow’s late lactation.
\nSow nursing behaviour is related with sow activity,
\nindicating that less active sows are more available for
\nsuckling. Sow backfat depth and sow body weight are
\nrelated to nursing behaviour in late lactation, indicating
\nthat light, thin sows have an earlier and more progressed
\nweaning process.
\nSows seem to balance between their and their litters’
\nneeds by changing nursing behaviour during lactation.
\nIn order to investigate how conventionally bred sows
\nkept outdoors manage to handle this act of balance,
\nmaternal traits and reproduction traits need to be studied
\nover several parities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Our aim was to describe nursing behaviour, sow activity, sow use of body reserves and piglet growth and the relationship between these traits in gilts kept outdoors. We conclude that in outdoor production, sow appetite in early lactation affects piglet growth until weaning at seven weeks. Sow nursing behaviour is not important for piglet growth […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[930],"tags":[4685,8882,4262,6899,5117,2851,6904,46,20007,105,3322,158,61,5381,818,4264,3742,3465,63,14,126,89,17743,27282,104,96,10007,23883,128,20911,4874,6053,3790,77,1301],"class_list":["post-4576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-production","tag-access","tag-al","tag-backfat","tag-behaviour-grouped-sows-lactation-maternal-ability-nursing-outdoor-production","tag-body-weight","tag-fat","tag-fee","tag-feed","tag-gh","tag-gilt","tag-gilts","tag-growth","tag-lactation","tag-light","tag-litter","tag-outdoor","tag-outdoor-production","tag-pea","tag-performance","tag-pig","tag-piglet","tag-piglets","tag-prod","tag-production","tag-sow","tag-sows","tag-sows-and-piglets","tag-sows-outdoor","tag-suckling","tag-t","tag-tan","tag-use","tag-weaned","tag-weaning","tag-weight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4576"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4576\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}