A cost to the commercial pork production is variability in growth. Birth weights have a large variance from 0.40 kg to 2.5 kg. The smaller pigs rarely demonstrate compensatory growth and have a lagging rate of gain throughout all growth stages, often needing an additional 10 days to reach market weight. Light weaning pigs may respond better to a high-quality weaning diet and may help reduce overall variability. Growth performance for the first week after weaning improved when fed a complex diet for 1-4 days. Lighter pigs lost less weight at weaning and had a greater response to the complex diet than the heavier pigs did. Phase 1 diet could be used more cost-effectively and efficiently if it was targeted to the lighter pigs at weaning. In this non-competitive environment, light-weight pigs were able to perform equal to the heavier litter mates, indicating that environmental factors such as feeder access need to be examined to improve the performance.
Development of Diets for Low Birth-Weight Piglets to Improve Post-Weaning Growth Performance and Optimize Net Returns to the Producer (full article)
