By Casey Neill and Jorge Estrada, Ph.D.
Swine nutrition can be a complex beast under the best conditions, with many variables to consider. However, when you have pigs flowing from a disease challenge or with a history of a disease challenge, that can take the complexity up a notch.
The history
The basic building blocks remain the same - you have to start with the information on the particular pig flow you are evaluating:
● Management: At how many days were these pigs weaned? Did they have to be weaned earlier than anticipated due to a break? Are they all flowing from the same sow farm or are herds being commingled? Understanding how these pigs were managed at the sow farm can help identify how smoothly they will transition to the nursery, and what needs to be considered to help them get up on feed faster.
● Pharmaceuticals protocol: What is the vaccine protocol? What treatments were given, and what preventative antibiotics are planned? These protocols have to be synchronized with the nutrition so they are working together, not against each other. For example, if a vaccine is being given at weaning, we sometimes have to be careful with what antibiotics are in the N1 diet so that the vaccine efficacy isn’t limited.
The Disease-Challenged
Another critical factor is disease pressure: What were they exposed to or infected with at the sow farm? What is prevalent in the geographical area of the nursery where they are being moved?
The nutrition plan is the outcome, but the approach is not a one-man show. When you are looking at triggering a different nutrition program, the nutritionist needs to work hand-in-hand with the herd veterinarian and the production team who are on-site. This continuous flow of communication with a particular pig flow allows us to get an additional layer of context for farm considerations.
Enteric challenges can be a little more straightforward, since while not always, they are generally more predictable than respiratory on when they’re going to happen. Respiratory challenges are a little more unpredictable after weaning, so having a solid program in the space to start is important for these piglets.
The emphasis here lies with preventative measures — investing in the nutrition of the pigs early on. This investment in their diet can have a significant return on investment payoff. Shift your mindset from the cost per ton of feed to the cost per pig out the door. If you are saving in mortality and preventing disease challenges that set your pigs’ performance back, you will have more full-value pigs. This spreads your nursery feed costs across more pigs and can save you money that you may have had to invest in treatments.
There are many factors of consideration outside of just the basic requirements of a nursery diet, and all of these factors need to be considered for each production site or pig flow. You can’t take a blanket approach to your whole operation. It is about getting the right ingredients into the right diet composition for the right pigs at the right time.
The H2O
As nutritionists, we can’t let a whole article go by in which we don’t mention the necessity of water accessibility and intake, especially in conversations on disease challenges. Water intake can be an early indicator that something is amiss in the herd.
Often what we see in barns that we visit is that the pigs are healthy, and then suddenly we have a challenge and those pigs crash. When you start reviewing water intake, you can often associate that drop-off right ahead of the crash.
In general, make sure those piglets are drinking once they get to the nursery, and get them up and moving a couple of times a day so they will go eat and drink more.
The Outcome
Like the planning process, the evaluation of success is holistic. Reviewing your records after the nursery, or your close-out data, will yield clear indications of how your program is performing. Your mortality numbers, your number of full-value pigs or your medication and intervention cost per pig, for example, are illustrative.
However, outside of an extremely controlled environment, it can often be challenging to pinpoint an indicator of success. Was it the nutrition? The water medication? Or was it the hard work of the caretaker that mat fed for the first week? No one factor can take all the credit, but each is essential to the success.
To summarize, here are the key three areas to best prepare your piglets:
● Prevention: Get ahead of those challenges to limit the repercussions of an outbreak.
● Management: Nothing replaces good management and a devoted team of caretakers.
● Nutrition: The right diet, with the right ingredients, at the right time.
Nutrition is a key tool in the toolbox that we can pull out, to adjust the formula and focus on making that transition from phase to phase a lot smoother for the piglets. This can help the morale of the workers and everyone involved because it is tough to take care of sick pigs. Anything we can do to help the teams and the piglets during this challenging time will have positive returns for our operations.
Read More:
Massachusetts Question 3: What’s Next for Pork Producers
Quotable Moments from National Pork Industry Conference
