Recipe for Sow Nutrition: Just Add Milk
By Geoff Geddes, for Swine Innovation Porc
They say “it’s not how you start in life; it’s how you finish.” Then again, “they” never met a milk-deprived piglet. Fortunately, researchers understand that a strong beginning is essential to piglet development, and milk plays a huge
role in sows starting their litters on the right hoof. No wonder then, that while science targets sow nutrition from a number of angles, maximizing sow milk yield continues to be a major focus of research.
Low cost feeding and management strategies
One of the most exciting aspects of research is that you can often address multiple issues with the same project. A perfect example of this was the study “Increasing sow milk yield and piglet growth via low cost feeding and management strategies.” Because a hungry sow is a cranky sow, hunger can often lead to conflict. To address this, researchers sought the best means of making sows feel full and less hostile, and found it in oat straw.
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