Nutritional Enhancement during Pregnancy and its Effects on Reproduction in Swine

October 11, 2013 — 

Exciting new research suggests that gestating sows might benefit from a two-phase feeding program because new amino acid requirement estimates are generally less than formerly thought in early gestation, whereas they are significantly greater than previously estimated in late gestation.

These new requirement estimates are based on N retention and other metabolic indicators such as indicator amino acid oxidation. Whether these response criteria are correlated with production criteria such as birth weight, early lactation milk production, and sow longevity has yet to be firmly established. If providing extra amino acid in late gestation increases piglet birth weight, we must determine whether the extra body weight will increase survival or body weight at market.

Energy requirements during early and mid-gestation are based largely on energy-dependent protein deposition and maintenance requirements. Some evidence suggests that providing more feed after day 90 of gestation affects birth weight; however, these studies are confounded with increasing amino acid intake, which may be more important than the increase in energy consumption. Providing extra energy in late gestation will increase sow body weight gain and often leads to lower feed intake during lactation.

The current data suggest that the amino acid requirement in late gestation increases to a much greater extent than the energy requirement. This knowledge provides a potential opportunity to improve reproductive performance.

R. D. Goodband, M. D. Tokach, M. A. D. Goncalves, J. C. Woodworth, S. S. Dritz and J. M. DeRouchey; Animal Frontiers October 2013 vol. 3 no. 4 68-75 http://www.animalfrontiers.org/content/3/4/68.full