Average litter size on swine farms in Saskatchewan has increased from approximately 10.4 to 11.2 piglets in the past 5 years. Further improvement is expected and moreover is required, to maintain competitiveness of the industry in Western Canada. Research conducted recently at PSCI showed that as litter size increased from 8.4 to 15.4 pigs born alive, average birth weight decreased by approximately 250 grams, or almost 40 grams per additional pig. The number of pigs less than 850 grams increased from 0.2 per litter in the small (5 to 12 piglets) litters to almost 1 per litter in the largest (16 or more born alive) litters. It is apparent that as litter size continues to increase it is crucial that these small pigs survive and go to market or we will lose the benefits of the large litters. The period immediately post-weaning is characterized by problems such as low feed consumption, poor growth rate, and increased incidence of diarrhea (Levesque et al. 2002). Reducing the interval between weaning and resumption of feed consumption can mitigate these issues, thus the piglet must be encouraged to begin consuming solid feed upon entering the nursery.
Our objective was to examine factors which may limit resumption of solid feed in the nursery. Factors examined included provision of creep feed in the nursery, diet quality, and piglet  bodyweight at weaning.  It was found that by feeding a simple diet, formulated to meet all nutrient requirements, did not reduce growth of piglets in this trial when compared to a complex diet fed for 1 or 4 days post-weaning. Switching from a complex to a simple diet after one day reduced feed intake to a greater extent than switching after 4 days post-weaning. The complex diet was approximately $380 per tonne more than the simple diet. Feeding regime B would cost about $0.35 more per piglet than A, and $0.38 more per piglet than feeding regime C. We expect this difference to be greater if the piglets are housed in a more competitive environment, and have a less than ideal health status.