J. Anim Sci. 2008. 86:1439-1445. doi:10.2527/jas.2007-0632
© 2008 American Society of Animal Science
Effect of drinker type on water intake and waste in newly weaned piglets1
S. Torrey*,2,
E. L. M. Toth Tamminga
and
T. M. Widowski
* Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Dairy and Swine Research and Development Centre, Sherbrooke, Quebec, J1M 1Z3, Canada; and
Department of Animal and Poultry Science, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, N1G 2W1, Canada
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Abstract
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During the first few days after weaning, pigs often experience BW loss as they adapt to eating solid food. During this time period, they are also known to drink excessively and develop abnormal oral behavior such as belly nosing. The excessive drinking may stem from the piglets’ attempt to satiate hunger through gut fill from a familiar ingestive source. Gut fill through water intake may affect the establishment of feeding behavior. Using drinker devices other than the standard nipple drinker may ease the piglets’ transition at weaning by facilitating the initiation of feeding and preventing the development of behavioral problems such as excessive drinking and belly nosing. In this experiment, we examined the effect of drinker type on water and food intake, growth rates, and belly nosing in newly weaned piglets. Eighteen pens of 15 piglets each (270 piglets total) were weaned at 18.1 ± 0.1 d of age and housed in pens containing 1 of 3 drinker devices (standard nipple, push-lever bowl, and float bowl). Piglets’ water and feed intake, water use, BW, and behavior were examined on a pen basis through 2 wk after weaning. Piglets with nipple drinkers wasted more water than the other piglets (P < 0.001; float, 295 ± 70 mL · pig–1 · d–1; nipple, 1,114 ± 63 mL · pig–1 · d–1; and push-lever, 186 ± 63 mL · pig–1 · d–1), whereas piglets with float bowls consumed less water than the other piglets (P < 0.001; float, 475 ± 81 mL · pig–1 · d–1; nipple, 870 ± 76 mL · pig–1 · d–1; push-lever, 774 ± 76 mL · pig–1 · d–1). Drinker type affected feeding behavior (P = 0.02); piglets with push-lever bowls spent less time at the feeder than the other piglets, although no difference was detected for feed intake (P = 0.64) or overall ADG (P = 0.16). Piglets with push-lever bowls also tended to perform less piglet-directed nosing behavior than piglets with the float bowl (P = 0.04). Piglets appear to use more water during the first 2 d after weaning with certain drinker devices. However, piglets do not appear to attain satiety through water consumption because most of the water used during the first few days after weaning is wasted. This excessive drinking and water wastage can be abated through the use of push-lever drinkers without negative implications for feed intake or growth rates.
Key Words: behavior • belly nosing • drinker device • drinking • early weaning • piglet
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INTRODUCTION
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Newly weaned piglets often drink excessively (Fraser et al., 1990
; Worobec et al., 1999) and have difficulty initiating feeding (Metz and Gonyou, 1990). They also develop behavioral problems such as belly nosing at greater rates than older weaned piglets (Widowski et al., 2008). Previously, we found that drinker devices can differentially affect feed intake, water use, and belly nosing (Torrey and Widowski, 2004). Piglets given access to push-lever bowls (previously referred to as bowl drinkers), rather than nipple drinkers, performed less belly nosing, spent less time at the drinker, and had greater feed intake during the first 2 d after weaning, a critical period for newly weaned piglets (Torrey and Widowski, 2004). Piglets with nipple drinkers appeared to spend more time drinking at the expense of eating. Use of nipple drinkers may exacerbate postweaning problems by providing them with an easy outlet for oral behavior, resulting in gut fill and a decreased motivation to feed. However, water use, and not water intake, was measured in our previous experiment.
Kinematic studies in pigs indicate that the major muscle movements of the tongue during drinking from a bowl are similar to those performed during suckling from a teat (Thexton et al., 1998). Because of the effect of drinker device on belly nosing (a behavior considered analogous to suckling; Fraser, 1978), we hypothesized that the push-lever bowl was accommodating piglets’ suckling motivation by providing either tactile stimulation on the snout by the surface of the drinker, or oropharyngeal stimulation through the act of sucking water from a vessel (Torrey and Widowski, 2004). If the benefits of the push-lever bowl are due to oropharyngeal stimulation, other styles of bowl drinkers should provide similar advantages and result in differences in water intake. Therefore, the aim of this experiment was to examine newly weaned piglets’ water intake and water waste when using 3 drinker devices.
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MATERIALS AND METHODS
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Animals and Housing
All procedures were reviewed and approved by the University of Guelph Animal Care Committee in accordance with the Canadian Council on Animal Care. This experiment was conducted between August and October 2005 at the University of Guelph Arkell Swine Research Centre.
At weaning, piglets were transferred from standard farrowing crates to an on-site nursery room containing 8 raised-deck pens. Each nursery pen measured 1.2 x 2.4 m and contained 1 drinker, 2 four-hole stainless steel feeders, and 1 heating pad measuring 0.61 x 0.91 m. The heating pads were placed at the front of the pens and were adjusted with rheostats to control the temperature to meet the needs of the piglets. Lights remained on continuously after weaning to aid videorecording. The experimental period was 14 d.
Experimental Design
The experiment included 133 barrows and 137 gilts. In each replicate, 45 Yorkshire piglets were weaned at 18.1 ± 0.1 d of age into each of 3 pens (15 piglets/pen) containing 1 of 3 drinker devices: a standard nursery pig bite-style nipple drinker (3/8-in. stainless steel Piggy Drinker, Model XYZ, S. M. Bauman Mfg., Wallenstein, Ontario, Canada; NIPPLE), a stainless steel nursery push-lever bowl drinker (Drik-O-Mat weaner bowl drinker, Egebjerg, Hovedgade Nykøbing Sj., Denmark; PUSH), or a plastic automatic float bowl drinker (Aquadish Automatic Waterer, 16-Al, Jeffers Pets, Dothan, AL; FLOAT; Figure 1). Water flow rate from the NIPPLE was 0.505 L/min. Flow rate from the PUSH was 1.59 L/min. The FLOAT was a self-filling vessel that held 0.5 L of water and, when completely empty, filled in 75 s (approximate flow rate of 0.40 L/min). The NIPPLE and PUSH were attached to the pen wall approximately 15 cm above the floor, whereas the FLOAT was at floor level. Drinker heights were not adjusted over the course of the experiment. To eliminate preweaning drinking experience, all piglet-drinking devices were removed from the farrowing crates. Sows were able to drink from nipple drinkers that were inaccessible to the piglets. Therefore, the piglets only had access to drinkers after weaning.
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Figure 1. Drinker devices used. (A) Drik-O-Mat push-lever bowl drinker (PUSH). This drinker required the piglets to press their snouts against the valve in the rear of the enclosure to release the water. They then must create negative pressure and engage in sucking motor patterns to ingest the water. (B) Aquadish float bowl drinker (FLOAT). Accessing water did not require pressure from the snout, but the pigs were required to create negative pressure and engage in sucking motor patterns to ingest the water. (C) Nipple drinker (NIPPLE). This was a bite-style drinker that was activated when the pigs depressed the valve with their mouths or snouts. Water flowed directly into the piglets’ mouths.
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Data Collection
Water Use, Intake, and Waste.
Water use was measured at each drinker by precalibrated positive-displacement water meters (C-700 Polymer, ABB, Atlantic Liquid Meters, Woodbridge, Ontario, Canada). Water meters were monitored on a daily basis at 0900 h. To measure water wasted, collection troughs were placed under the flooring below each drinker. Water wasted was measured on a daily basis at 0900 h by using a graduated cylinder. Evaporation was determined to be less than 5 mL · pig–1 · d–1 and was considered to be consistent across drinker devices. Urination into the waste troughs could not be determined. However dunging patterns indicated that most piglets voided in a corner of the pen away from the collection troughs. Water intake was calculated as the difference between water used and water wasted.
Feed Intake, Growth Rates, and Mortality.
Apparent feed intake was determined daily on a per-pen basis and was adjusted for the number of piglets in the pen (accounting for any mortality). Piglet BW was measured on the day of weaning and on d 7 and 14 after weaning (Pennsylvania M6400 Bench Platform Scale, Pennsylvania Scale Company, Lancaster, PA, with a Cardinal 738 Digital Indicator, Cardinal Scale Manufacturing Company, Webb City, MO). Average daily gain was calculated from the BW data. Mortality was recorded as it occurred throughout the experiment.
Behavior.
A digital recording system (Kodicom i31808WM, Toronto, Ontario, Canada) was used to videorecord the piglet behavior at 30 frames/s. One camera per pen (Panasonic WV-CP240, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada) was mounted on the ceiling above the pens. Pens were continuously videorecorded on d 9 and 10 after weaning. Behavior was instantaneously scan-sampled by 2 trained observers (every 5 min from 0600 to 0800 h, 1200 to 1400 h, and 2000 to 2200 h) for lying, feeding, drinking, belly nosing, pen mate-directed nosing, and other behavior (for a description of the behavioral patterns, see table). Interobserver reliability, determined from 2,000 observations, was high (kappa = 0.89; Lehner, 1996).
Statistical Analysis
The experiment followed a complete block design with 3 treatments (PUSH, NIPPLE, and FLOAT) in each of 6 replicates (n = 18 pens). Within replicate, pens were balanced for weaning weight and sex, and blocked by litter. All statistical analyses were performed by using SAS (SAS Inst. Inc., Cary, NC). All data met the assumptions for ANOVA. Pen was the experimental unit. For variables with data collected on individual animals (BW and ADG), a pen average was used for analyses. For all variables, ANOVA were performed by using the MIXED procedure. Drinker device and day after weaning were fixed effects. Replicate was a random effect. Day after weaning was used as a repeated measure. When main effects were found (P < 0.10), the Tukey-Kramer adjustment was used to compare treatment means. Means and SE are reported in the text and in all graphs and tables.
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RESULTS
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Water Use, Intake, and Waste
Water use (Table 1) differed among the 3 drinker devices (P < 0.001); piglets with NIPPLE used the most amount of water, whereas those with FLOAT used the least amount of water. There was also a day x drinker type interaction (P = 0.004; Figure 2). Water use from FLOAT and PUSH did not differ (P > 0.20) on any specific day, although overall water use was greater from PUSH (P < 0.001). Water use from NIPPLE and PUSH was different on the first 3 d and last 5 d (P < 0.01 except d 11 and 14, where P < 0.05). Water use from the NIPPLE and FLOAT was different every day after d 1 (P < 0.01).
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Figure 2. Effect of drinker type on daily water use through 2 wk after weaning. Water use differed among the drinker devices (P < 0.001).
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A difference between treatments was observed in water intake (P < 0.001; Table 1
) and a day x drinker type interaction was observed (P = 0.04; Figure 3). Piglets given FLOAT consumed less water than piglets with the other 2 drinker devices (Table 1), especially after the first 2 d after weaning (Figure 3).
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Figure 3. Effect of drinker type on daily water intake through 2 wk after weaning. Water intake was less from FLOAT than from the other 2 drinkers (P < 0.001).
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Water wasted (Table 1) also differed throughout the experiment (P < 0.001). Piglets with NIPPLE wasted more water (P < 0.001) than piglets with either FLOAT or PUSH (Figure 4). There was also an effect of day after weaning (P < 0.001) and an interaction (P < 0.005) between drinker type and day (Figure 4).
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Figure 4. Effect of drinker type on daily water waste through 2 wk after weaning. Water wasted was greater from NIPPLE than from the other 2 drinkers (P < 0.001).
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Feed Intake and Growth Rates
No difference was observed (P > 0.60) between treatments in feed intake through the first 48 h after weaning or overall (Figure 5). An effect of day was noted on feed intake (P < 0.001), but no interaction was observed between treatment and day (P = 0.99). Regardless of treatment, piglets increased feed intake through 3 d after weaning, and then experienced a slight decrease in feed intake for 2 d. After 5 d postweaning, feed intake increased steadily with all drinker devices.
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Figure 5. Effect of drinker type on daily feed intake through 2 wk after weaning. Drinker type did not influence overall feed intake.
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Overall, piglets weighed 5.8 ± 0.07 at weaning (Table 2). No effect of treatment was detected for BW at d 7 (P = 0.92) or d 14 (P = 0.54) or ADG through the first (P = 0.60) or second week (P = 0.11) after weaning. As expected, time affected (P < 0.001) BW and ADG, but no interaction between day and treatment was observed (P > 0.75).
Behavior
Analyses indicated no treatment x day interaction (P > 0.21), so data for d 9 and 10 were combined. Drinker type (Table 3) influenced feeding behavior (P = 0.02) and tended to influence lying behavior (P = 0.06), belly nosing (P = 0.10), and all piglet-directed behavior (P = 0.06). Piglets with PUSH spent less time performing all nosing behavior (P = 0.04) than those with FLOAT, and spent less time at the feeder than piglets with NIPPLE (P = 0.03; Table 3).
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DISCUSSION
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This study extended our previous experiment (Torrey and Widowski, 2004), and examined water intake and waste in newly weaned pigs. The PUSH drinker necessitated both tactile and oropharyngeal stimulation, whereas the FLOAT drinker required oropharyngeal, but not tactile, stimulation. The NIPPLE drinker permitted neither mode of stimulation. We found that drinker type affected water intake and waste, and behavior in newly weaned piglets. With PUSH and NIPPLE, water consumption increased with piglet age. This finding agrees with other studies that found that, after the first few days after weaning, piglets increased water intake (Fowler and Gill, 1989; McLeese et al., 1992; Maenz et al., 1994) as feed intake increased. Water consumption was less when piglets were given FLOAT, especially after the first 2 d. This result is not surprising because, even with daily cleaning, FLOAT became soiled with urine, feces, and feed, and piglets chose not to drink from an unclean vessel (Phillips and Phillips, 1999). Float bowls are generally not commercially available for use with piglets. In this study, we used this design for experimental purposes to test the hypotheses related to motor patterns and drinking, and our results indicate that this drinker type is not recommended. Piglets with FLOAT increased water intake after 10 d; however, overall daily water intake remained lower than with the other 2 drinkers.
Overall water wastage was greater in pens with NIPPLE than in those with the other 2 drinkers, and wastage accounted for more than half the water used in those pens. The greater rate of water wastage may be partly due to the flow rate used to ensure a proper reading from the water meters. Increasing water flow rates for both weanling (Barber et al., 1989) and growing pigs (Nienaber and Hahn, 1984; Li et al., 2005) increased the percentage of total water wasted. In our previous experiment, we found that water use from NIPPLE was greater than from PUSH (Torrey and Widowski, 2004). Because water consumption from those 2 drinkers did not differ in this experiment, the difference observed previously was most likely due to differences in wasted water.
During the first 2 d after weaning, piglets with NIPPLE and FLOAT used and wasted more water than those with PUSH. High water intake and use immediately after weaning has been reported previously (Brooks et al., 1984; Fowler and Gill, 1989; Maenz et al., 1994; Dybkjær et al., 2006; Mahan et al., 2006). McLeese et al. (1992) suggested that, in newly weaned piglets, there are 2 phases of water consumption: the first phase, which occurs for up to 5 d after weaning, is not related to physiological need, and the second phase is related to feed intake and ADG. Yang et al. (1981) found that fasted growing pigs consumed water in response to hunger, and this idea was suggested as the reason why newly weaned piglets drink excessively (McLeese et al., 1992; Torrey and Widowski, 2004; Dybkjær et al., 2006). However, unlike other studies (McLeese et al., 1992; Maenz et al. 1994), we did not find excessive levels of water intake during the first several days after weaning. Although piglets given NIPPLE or FLOAT used more water during the first 1 or 2 d after weaning compared with later days and compared with PUSH, the majority of this water was wasted and the excessive drinking may have been the result of piglets exploring their environment (as suggested by Dybkjær et al., 2006), or water may simply have been wasted during the fighting bouts that commonly occur immediately after mixing (Pitts et al., 2000). We did not examine piglet behavior during the first few days to determine whether the water use was deliberate, although a more detailed analysis of individual piglet drinking behavior immediately after weaning is warranted.
Piglets given PUSH tended to spend less time performing all piglet-directed oral behavior than piglets with FLOAT. In our previous study, piglets weaned at 15 d of age and given access to PUSH belly nosed significantly less than piglets with NIPPLE. We hypothesized that the difference was due to either tactile or oropharyngeal stimulation, or a combination of the two (Torrey and Widowski, 2004). We considered that drinking from PUSH was tactilely satisfying to the piglet, similar to nosing devices that also reduce belly nosing (Bench and Gonyou, 2006). We also hypothesized that a bowl drinker could satisfy piglets’ suckling motivation by requiring the piglet to consume water through suction, the natural drinking style of piglets (Thexton et al., 1998). However, both PUSH and FLOAT required piglets to use suction to consume water, and belly nosing and other nonrhythmic nosing tended to be more prevalent in piglets with FLOAT. As a result, it appeared that the drinker effect on belly nosing may be related to tactile stimulation of the snout. Alternatively, the extensive soiling of FLOAT and the resulting lesser water intake may have prohibited piglets from realizing any satisfaction from this drinker device.
In conclusion, drinker devices influence newly weaned piglet water intake and waste, and piglet behavior. Given NIPPLE, piglets use significant amounts of water, most of which is wasted. Bowl drinkers can reduce water waste, although bowl design is very important to minimize water contamination and ensure adequate water intake. Compared with other drinker devices, PUSH results in minimal water waste while not negatively affecting water or food intake or piglet growth.
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Footnotes
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1 This research was funded by a grant from the National Pork Board of the United States (Des Moines, IA). The authors wish to acknowledge the technical assistance of the Arkell Swine Research Unit and Meghan Mackenzie-Bell from the University of Guelph, and the statistical assistance of Steve Me 'thot from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. 
2 Corresponding author: torreys{at}agr.gc.ca
Received for publication October 4, 2007.
Accepted for publication January 31, 2008.
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LITERATURE CITED
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Abstract
INTRODUCTION
