Effects of weight, number and group uniformity on the productive performance of pigs in post-weaning in a confined system
Abstract
Weaning represents a critical stage in the productive life of pigs,
facing factors such as change of feed, transport, the environment of new
facilities and the grouping with strange piglets that can affect the achievement
of a good performance. The objective of this work was to quantify the effects
of uniformity, weight and number of pigs per pen post-weaning on the daily
increase, feed conversion and mortality in the confinement breeding system.
The experience was carried out between 2016 and 2017 in a full-cycle pig
establishment. We used hybrid pigs, weaned at 28 days of age and housed
in confined-room pens, with all-in-all-out handling. We controlled the initial
individual weights and the final weight, determining the daily increase, feed
conversion and number of deaths per repetition. Three experiments were
carried out: 1. Effect of uniformity and weight of the pigs. 2. Effect of group size
and 3. Effect of housing light piglets in pens of lightweight pigs or heavy pigs.
The results found in the daily increase, feed conversion and number of deaths
were significantly better in the treatment of “homogeneous heavy weights”
than on “homogeneous light weight”. There are no differences when they
were compared with the treatment “heterogeneous weights”. The welfare of
small pigs housed with larger groups often compromises the performance of
these animals in the stages of growth and termination.
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