Does caffeine and a little sugar jumpstart newborn piglets like it does for college students? That’s a question one student set out to answer through her research to refine strategies to support the most vulnerable piglets and improve overall herd productivity.
“Research conducted under commercial farm conditions is important,” says Bryn Van Winters, a veterinary student at the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph.
Van Winters, the 2026 winner of the Top Student Presenter Award at the American Association of Swine Veterinarians Annual Meeting, says this helps ensure results are practical and applicable to real-world production systems.
Her presentation titled “Effects of early-life energy supplementation on survival and growth in pre-weaned piglets” earned her a $5,000 scholarship from the Zoetis Foundation.
Can Early Energy Supplementation Improve Piglet Growth?
Prior experience working with neonatal calves, particularly “dummy calves,” where inadequate energy and oxygen delivery around birth can compromise early vitality, sparked Van Winters’ interest in how similar early-life physiological challenges affect piglets.
“In pigs, newborns have limited energy reserves and are highly dependent on early energy intake to maintain body temperature and activity,” she says. “I wanted to explore whether providing a readily available energy source at birth could help support piglet survival and early performance in a commercial farrowing environment, and was interested in evaluating practical strategies that producers could realistically implement on farm.”
Her research evaluated the effects of providing different energy supplements to piglets at birth on survival and growth performance in a commercial farrowing barn. Piglets were organized by birth weight and assigned to one of four treatment groups, including dextrose, PiggyBoost, caffeine + dextrose solution and a control (water). Outcomes such as pre-weaning mortality, average daily gain, and weaning weight were monitored to determine whether early energy supplementation improved piglet performance.
“The most important takeaway was that providing readily available energy to newborn piglets reduced pre-weaning mortality,” Van Winters explains. “Our results suggested that dextrose supplementation showed promising effects in improving piglet outcomes.”
This research highlights a relatively simple management strategy that could help reduce pre-weaning mortality and support early piglet growth, she says.
“If effective interventions can be implemented easily in the farrowing room, they have the potential to improve both animal welfare and overall production efficiency,” Van Winters says.
AASV Recognizes Top Veterinary Student Presentations
In addition, Elanco Animal Health provided $20,000 in additional funding, enabling the AASV Foundation to award scholarships for 2nd through 15th place.
Four veterinary student presenters received $2,500 scholarships: Maeve Powis, University of Guelph; Jacqueline Springer, University of Illinois; Jinnan Xiao, Iowa State University; Emma Zwart, Iowa State University
Five veterinary student presenters received $1,500 scholarships: Ginny Bass, North Carolina State University; Emily Evans-Stevens, Kansas State University; Ben Hollis, Iowa State University; Kara Linder, Colorado State University; Johanna Vandenack, Iowa State University
Those student presenters receiving $500 scholarships were: Sean Dullard, University of Illinois; Lila Minnick, University of Illinois; Rebecca Smith, University of Georgia; Nicole Villalon, Iowa State University; Samantha Wagner, Midwestern University
In addition to the $5,000 Top Student Presenter award, the Zoetis Foundation provided $11,250 in grant funding to support $750 awards for each student selected to participate in the oral session. Forty-one veterinary students from 14 universities submitted abstracts for consideration by a panel of six veterinarians from private practice, industry and academia.
