• Journal of Animal Environmental Science
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• v.4 no.1
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• pp.1-8
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• 1998

The objective of this study was conducted to develope a mobile pig nursery(MPN) for segregation of early weaned piglet. The units of MPN was consisted of 4 rectangle-type pens, 1 workroom, 2 doors, 3 windows, 1 air-inlet, 1 exhaust fan, and 1 cooling and heating system. Total of 40 piglet were weaned at 7 days of age. The period of the feeding test was 63 days. The results obtained are as follows: 1. The insulation thickness was 70, 70 and 50 mm of roof, floor and wall, respectively. R-value was 15.32 and 10.32 of roof and wall, respectively. 2. Exhaust fan( 30.48) was installed near back door 40cm from the bottom. When exhaust fan speeds were 15, 20, 30 and 35%, Air ventilation was required 9.75, 7.07, 1.72, 1.45 minutes of respectively. 3. Average temperature in the MPN was able to maintain 27∼28$^{\circ}C$ from 7∼28 days of age, 24∼25$^{\circ}C$ from 35∼56 days of age and 20∼21.5$^{\circ}C$ from 56∼70 days of age. 4. Average daily gain, feed intake and feed conversion were 420.6g, 761.5g, 1.81 respectively.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.976-987
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• 1999

The process of weaning, no matter how carefully managed, results in changes in the gut of the pig that make it more susceptible to digestive upset, diarrhea and impaired appetite. The objective in developing feeding programs is to recognize these unique needs and facilitate a smooth transition to a dry feed. How well this is accomplished, has a significant impact on future performance. This paper provides a review of recent research on the nutrients required by early weaned pigs and examines what feedstuffs are available to provide those nutrients in a form that can be best utilized by the early weaned piglet.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.511-515
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• 2000

Early weaning is a means of breaking the disease cycle from sow to piglet as well as capitalising on the enormous growth potential of the pig. However, the transition from milk to dry diets results in a growth check. Feeding of supplemental milk, fermented to reduce pH and enterotoxigenic bactetial proliferation, may be a means of gradually weaning pigs on to solid feed. This study involved 216 pigs weaned from the sow at 12 days of age, allocated to groups of 6 males and 6 females per weaner pen and allowed ad libitum access to a pelleted diet. In addition, half the pigs were given supplemental fermented skim milk for the first 8 days after weaning. Feeding supplemental fermented milk increased feed intake (104 vs. 157 g DM/d, p=0.011), average daily gain (-3 vs. 112 g/d, p<0.001) and feed conversion efficiency (0.01 vs. 0.81, p=0.003) over the first 8 days after weaning. The improvements observed in the supplemented pigs continued to be augmented such that, by 42 days of age, the pigs that had received supplemental fermented milk were heavier (9.6 vs. 11.5 kg, p=0.003) than their unsupplemented counterparts. Feeding fermented supplemental milk to early-weaned pigs can improve growth performance in the immediate and subsequent post-weaning period.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.12 no.6
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• pp.908-913
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• 1999

This experiment was conducted in three trials to evaluate optimal ambient temperature for a novel milk replacer feeding system designed for early-weaned pigs, compared to commercial dry diets fed within a conventional hot nursery. A total of 165 PIC genotype pigs were weaned at $13.89{\pm}0.7$ days of age and allotted to one of two dietary treatments in three trials based on weight and litter origin. Each trial consisted of pigs fed dry diets (DD) and pigs fed milk replacer (MR) which was offered in one of 3 different ambient temperatures. Pigs fed milk replacer were housed in a specialized nursery building in which one half of each pen contained an enclosed hover that was thermostatically maintained at $32^{\circ}C$ while the exterior ambient temperature (where milk was fed) was set at either 17 (trial 1), 24 (trial 2) or $32^{\circ}C$ (trial 3). Pigs fed dry diets with the conventional nursery were maintained at $30^{\circ}C$ for each trial. From d 21 to d 49, all pigs were fed DD within a standardized hot nursery environment. During the first week (d 14-21), pigs fed MR showed increased ADG from 214% to 228% over control pigs fed DD (p<0.001), regardless of ambient temperature. As ambient temperature was increased from 17 to 24 to $32^{\circ}C$, ADG of MR-fed pigs was increased by 214%, 220% and 228% over those of pigs fed DD, respectively. ADFIs of MR-fed pigs at $17^{\circ}C$, $24^{\circ}C$, and $32^{\circ}C$ compared with pigs fed DD were increased by 108%, 139% and 164% from d 14 to d 21, respectively. Fed efficiency (G/F) of MR-fed pigs at $17^{\circ}C$, $24^{\circ}C$, and $32^{\circ}C$ compared with pigs fed DD were 199%, 162% and 139% of those of pigs fed DD, respectively. As ambient temperature increased, diarrhea scores showed a slight tendency to increase. The advantage of MR feeding was greater when the ambient temperature was higher, but G/F was impaired with increased ambient temperature. We conclude that ambient temperature within the specialized nursery influenced behavior, MR feed intake, and probably piglet energy expenditure. There were no differences between MR-fed and DD-fed pigs for ADG, ADFI and G/F in the subsequent growth period (d 21 to d 49, p>0.05). Maximal advantage of MR feeding was obtained at the intermediate ($24^{\circ}C$) ambient temperature during the overall period (p<0.05). Results from this experiment indicate that a milk replacer feeding system utilized in the early postweaning period can maximize pig growth performance, and that ADG, ADFI and G/F were affected by different ambient temperatures within MR-fed pigs. The high or low temperatures could not support the maximal growth of pigs fed MR.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.66 no.3
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• pp.543-554
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• 2024

This study investigated the correlation between piglet performance and sow body weight change (BWC) during two gestational periods: 35-70, 70-105, and 35-105 days. A cohort of 70 sows was evaluated for BWC, backfat thickness change (BFC), caliper score change (CALC), feed intake, and weaning-to-estrus interval (WEI). The collected data were then analyzed according to the two specified periods. Our findings highlighted that piglet birth weight, weaning weight, and average daily weight gain (ADG) correlated with sow body characteristics, including BFC and CALC. The strongest correlation was observed with BWC. Piglet mortality was intimately associated with BFC. Piglet birth weight, weaning weight, and ADG showed a positive correlation with sow BWC, particularly during the 35-70 day period. Furthermore, sows displaying a higher BWC during the 70-105 day period, and also exhibiting a higher BW gain from 35-70 days, registered greater piglet weight gains and higher weaning weights. These trends became more apparent as the sow's BWC increased during the 70-105 day period. Piglet mortality increased when the sow exhibited a lower BWC during both the 35-70 and 70-105 day periods. No significant observations were found concerning the number of stillborn piglets, live-born piglets, or weaned piglets, and no interaction effects were detected between these periods. In conclusion, our findings underscore the significance of sow BWC during the early stages of gestation (d 35-70) for enhancing piglet performance from birth to weaning.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
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• v.46 no.2
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• pp.273-283
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• 2019

This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation of anise flavor on the performance of lactating sows and suckling pigs at different weaning ages. A total of 120 sows (Landrace ${\times}$ Yorkshire) were used in this experiment. Sows were fed with a commercial lactation diet (60 sows) or diet with flavor (60 sows) during days 100 to 114 of gestation period and the whole lactation period. Piglets were allotted to 2 dietary treatments based on their initial body weight (BW) using a $2{\times}2$ factorial arrangement of treatments with 2 levels of anise flavor (0 or 0.5 g/kg) and weaning periods (weaned at 21 day or 28 day after birth). Sows fed with flavor supplemented diets had higher (p < 0.05) back fat and average daily feed intake (ADFI) at weaning, lower (p < 0.05) back fat loss than those fed with non-flavor diets. Sows weaned at 28 day had higher (p < 0.05) weaning back fat and lower (p < 0.05) back fat loss than those weaned on 21 day. During weaning, piglet average daily gain (ADG), ADFI, digestibility of dry matter (DM), nitrogen (N), and gross energy (GE) and fecal score were affected by anise flavor, respectively. In conclusion, dietary flavor supplementation could increase feed intake of lactating sows, improve growth performance and reduce weaning stress of piglets, especially effective in the early weanling piglets. Meanwhile, interactive effects were observed about the piglet performance between weaning ages and anise flavor supplementation after weaning.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.13 no.5
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• pp.645-652
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• 2000

A total of 80 piglets ($5.18{\pm}0.61kg$ of BW; 16 d of age) were fed experimental diets to evaluate the effect of extruded full-fat soybean (EFS) on the growth of eatly weaned pigs. Pigs were allotted into five treatments based on body weight, in a completely randomized block design. Each treatment has 4 replicates of 4 animals each. Treatments consisted of diets representing substitutional ratios of EFS for soybean meal. 1) 100:0 (SBM), 2) 75:25 (EFS 25), 3) 50:50 (EFS 50), 4) 25:75 (EFS 75) and 5) 0:100 (EFS 100). During phase I (d 0 to 7), piglets were fed diets containing 3,340 kcal ME, 26% crude protein, 1.85% lysine, 1.0% Ca and 0.9% P. For phase II (d 8 to 21), piglets were fed diets supplying 3,340 kcal ME, 23% crude protein, 1.65% lysine, 0.9% Ca and 0.8% P. Urease activity (pH rise) of EFS (0.18) was three times higher than that of SBM (0.06) indicating that processing conditions were not efficient enough to inactivate urease activity. During the first week postweaning, pigs fed SBM had significantly greater average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI) and better feed conversion ratio (FCR) compared to pigs fed FFS diets. Linear negative effect on growth rate was found as the inclusion rate of FFS increased. During d 8 - 21 postweaning, piglets fed EFS 50 diet showed the best ADG and FCR despite no significant difference between treatment SBM and EFS 25 have been observed. Overall, piglets fed diets up to 50% FFS inclusion rate exhibited similar weight gain. Only piglets fed EFS 100 diet showed a significantly decreased growth rate. No other significant effect was found in feed intake and feed conversion ratio. At d 7, dry matter digestibility was higher in pigs fed SBM diet than piglets fed EFS 75 diet (p<0.05) and crude protein digestibility was higher in piglets fed SBM diet than piglets fed EFS 50, EFS 75 and EFS 100 (p<0.05). At d 21, no difference other than in phosphorus digestibility was detected. This indicates that piglets at 21 d postweaning are capable of utilizing nutrients from FFS. No treatment effects were detected in blood metabolites. The data suggests that piglets at 16 d of age are not sufficiently mature to use extruded FFS in their diets. Nevertheless, FFS seemed to be able to replace upto 50% of SBM in weaned piglet diet.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.14 no.8
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• pp.1138-1143
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• 2001

A total of 96 piglets were weaned at 19 and 13 days in Exp. 1 and 2, respectively, and allotted to one of four diets: three with different spray dried plasmas (SPs) and one with hydrolysed casein (HC). SPs were from pigs (SPP), mixed origin (SMP), and mixed origin with standardized level of immunoglobulins (SMPIG). All the diets contained 1.7% total lysine, 25% of the test protein source, 45% corn starch, 15% lactose, 2% sucrose, 7% soybean oil. At d 4 and d 2 in Exp. 1 and 2, respectively, piglets were perorally challenged with $10^{10}$ CFU E. coli K88. Growth performance, immunity, and health condition were measured for 15 days and 14 days in Exp. 1 and 2, respectively. To investigate apparent ileal digestibility and nutrient deposition, all piglets were sacrificed at d 14 in Exp. 2. In 1. 3 piglets died in HC diet and 1 in SPP diet. HC diet showed higher mortality (p<0.01) than other diets. In Exp. 2, no clinical sign of infection was detected, no difference for the content of E. coli K88 was found in feces at 4 and 6 days after the infection, and no E. coli K88 was found in the jejunum at the end of experiment. In both experiments, feed intake was lower for HC diet and ADG was 96, 106, 122 and 155 for HC, SPP, SMP and SMPIG diet, respectively (HC vs others, p<0.05; SMPIG vs other SP, p<0.01). Heal apparent digestibility of nitrogen in sacrificed piglets was higher for HC diet (p<0.05). After the challenge, K88-specific titers in saliva (Exp. 1) and in plasma (Exp. 2) were reduced in SMP and SMPIG. The piglets positive to the adhesion of the used E. coli strain to the intestinal brush borders had a significantly reduced growth (p<0.01) and a higher K88-specific IgA titer in plasma, in comparison with negative ones. This effect was independent of the diet. The data show the relevance of spray dried plasma sources and particularly of SP with standardized level of immunoglobulins for the feeding of early-weaned at the risk of infection by enterotoxigenic bacteria.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
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• v.45 no.6
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• pp.1079-1088
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• 2003

This study was conducted to test the efficacy of the automatic liquid feeder(designated as NLRI) developed by National Livestock Research Institute, Korea for 7-day old early-weaning piglets. The other automatic liquid feeder imported from USA(designated as IALF) was used for a comparative purpose. A total of sixty piglets of 7 days of age were allotted to three treatments. The control group of 20 piglets was raised by their own sows until 21 days of age, while others were shifted to automatic liquid feeders of either NLRI or IALF on 7 days of age and reared during 14 days post-weaning. After then, all the piglets were fed nutritionally identical mash diets until 70 days of age. Compared with control group, body weight of piglets reared on automatic liquid feeders were lighter(P〈0.05) at 21 days of age [5.55kg (control) vs 4.97 (NLRI) and 4.98kg (IALF)], while heavier(P〈0.05) at 70 days of age(24.82kg vs 30.17 and 29.42kg). The results indicated that pigs reared on liquid feeding showed higher(P〈0.05) average daily gain than control pigs during the whole experimental period [346.7g (control) vs 425.8 (NLRI) and 416.1g (IALF)], while no difference was found in feed/gain (1.67 vs 1.78 and 1.84). There was no difference in growth performance and incidence of diarrhea between two automatic liquid feeders, NLRI and IALF. Compared with control group, intestinal villi tended to be shorter in liquid feeding group during the first week, but were recovered within two weeks. The results suggest that the automatic liquid feeder newly developed by National Livestock Research Institute, Korea can be successfully used for rearing young piglets weaned at very early age.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
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• v.18 no.9
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• pp.1285-1293
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• 2005

The present study was conducted to evaluate and compare the effects of various animal and plant protein sources on piglet' performance, digestibility of amino acids and gut morphology in weaned pigs until 28 days after weaning. The plant protein sources used were soybean meal (SBM), fermented soy protein (FSP), rice protein concentrate (RPC); and animal protein sources tested were, whey protein concentrate (WPC) and fishmeal (FM). Iso-proteinous (21%) diets were formulated and lysine (1.55%) content was similar in all the diets. The level of each protein source added was 6% by replacing SBM to the same extent from the control diet containing 15% SBM. The ADG was higher (p<0.05) in the groups fed animal proteins as compared with plant proteins at all the levels of measurement, except during 15-28 days. The highest ADG was noted in WPC and FM fed diets and lowest in SBM fed diet. The feed intake was higher in animal protein fed groups than plant proteins at all phases, but the feed:gain ratio was not affected by protein sources except during overall (0 to 14 day) measurement which was improved (p<0.05) in animal protein fed diets compared to plant protein sources. The digestibilities of gross energy, dry matter and crude protein were higher in animal protein fed groups than for plant protein fed sources. The apparent ileal digestibilities of essential amino acids like Leu, Thr, and Met were significantly (p<0.05) higher in animal proteins fed animals as compared with plant protein fed animals. But the apparent fecal digestibilities of essential amino acids like Arg and Ile were significantly higher (p<0.05) in plant protein diets than animal protein sources. The villous structure studied by scanning electron microscope were prominent, straight finger-like, although shortened and densely located in FM fed group as compared with others. The lactic acid bacteria and C. perfringens counts were higher in caecal contents of pigs fed plant proteins than the animal proteins. Overall, it could be concluded that animal protein sources in the present study showed better effects on growth performance, nutrient digestibility and gut morphology than plant protein sources.