Feeding Sows Lucerne, or Diets with Similar Energy and Nutritional Profiles to Lucerne, Improves the Pre-Weaning Performance of Piglets

Udani A. Wijesiriwardana, Kate J. Plush, Sally Tritton, John R. Pluske, Jeremy J. Cottrell and Frank R. Dunshea
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Udani A. Wijesiriwardana: Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia
Kate J. Plush: SunPork Solutions, Shea-Oak Log 5371, Australia
Sally Tritton: SunPork Solutions, Shea-Oak Log 5371, Australia
John R. Pluske: Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia
Jeremy J. Cottrell: Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia
Frank R. Dunshea: Faculty of Veterinary and Agricultural Sciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville 3010, Australia

Agriculture, 2021, vol. 11, issue 11, 1-13

Abstract: Feeding fibre and branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) to sows during late gestation and lactation, respectively, have been shown to improve litter weights at weaning. Therefore, supplementing primiparous sow diets with lucerne chaff, a feedstuff high in fibre, BCAA and tryptophan, may improve the performance of their progeny. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of feeding primiparous sows ( n = 118) either (i) a control diet (CON); (ii) CON with 1 kg of lucerne chaff (LUC); or (iii) a diet formulated to have a similar digestible energy and BCAA content as CON + LUC (SIMLUC 1) until farrowing. The LUC and SIMLUC 1 diets improved day 21 litter weight ( p = 0.055). In Experiment 2 primiparous ( n = 111) and multiparous sows (parities 2–5, n = 112) were fed either the CON or SIMLUC diet (SIMLUC 2) from day 110 of gestation to farrowing (PreF), or to day 10 post-farrowing (PreF + PostF). The SIMLUC 2 diet tended to be more beneficial to primiparous compared to multiparous sows when fed PreF, as indicated by an interaction between diet and parity on day 21 average piglet weights ( p = 0.078). Overall, SIMLUC is most effective in improving primiparous progeny performance as evidenced by their D21 weights.

Keywords: gilt progeny; lucerne; primiparous sow; weaning weights (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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