Providing supplemental feed to the piglets in the farrowing room, or creep feeding, is practised to ensure a smooth transition onto solid feed at weaning. It is assumed that even a limited intake of the creep feed will familiarize the piglet with solid feed and lessen a post-weaning growth lag by 1) increasing the body weight of piglets at
weaning, 2) encouraging consumption of solid feed following weaning and, 3) adapting the gastro-intestinal tract to solid feed. This study was initiated when the Prairie Swine Centre moved to a later weaning age (28 days). We hypothesized that the benefits of creep feeding would be more evident with later weaning. Additionally, we examined if the response to creep feeding would differ between light and heavy birth-weight pigs.

It was found that allowing piglets access to a Phase 1 diet (creep feed) in the farrowing room for the final 7 days prior to weaning on  day 28 provided no sustained performance benefit, regardless of weaning weight.