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The Effect of Meal Intervals and Weaning on Feed Intake of Early Weaned Pigs¹

University of Wisconsin, Madison 53706

Abstract

Feed intake was investigated in early weaned pigs housed in two environments. In the first experiment, pigs in an unfamiliar environment (removed from the sow and placed in nursery pens) were offered a dry diet either ad libitum or at different meal intervals (2, 4 and 6 h). Regardless of meal interval (ad libitum or hourly intervals), early weaned (21 d) pigs failed to consume sufficient feed for maintenance during the first 3 d postweaning. Pigs provided feed ad libitum consumed more (P<.001) feed (142 vs 84 g/d) and gained more (P<.05) weight (57 vs 3 g/d) than meal-fed pigs over the 7-d period. Pigs fed at 2-h intervals consumed more (P<.001) feed than pigs fed at 4-h or 6-h intervals. Compared with preweaning levels (307 µeq/liter), plasma free fatty acid (FFA) levels increased approximately fourfold by d 1 postweaning (1,372 µeq/liter), then decreased through d 7 to levels below preweaning (142 µeq/liter). The FFA levels were not affected (P>.1) by meal interval. In a second experiment, feed intake was investigated in weaned pigs that were allowed to consume food by a familiar method and in a familiar environment (suckling the sow). When allowed to nurse following a 24-h weaning period, weaned pigs consumed (24.3 ± 2.8 g/suckling) the same amount (P>.1) as non-weaned littermates (28.7 ± 1.8 g/suckling). Compared with unweaned control pigs, FFA levels (404 µeq/liter) were twofold higher (P<.01) in weaned pigs (922 µeq/liter) and remained higher throughout the d (815 µeq/liter) as pigs were allowed to nurse the sow. Thus, the reduction in feed intake of pigs postweaning can be attributed to a reaction to an unfamiliar method of food acquisition, coupled with an unfamiliar source of food.

¹ Dept. of Meat and Anim. Sci. Paper No. 868. Research was supported by the College of Agr. and Life Sci., Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison and the Wisconsin Pork Producers Assoc.

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