ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE February 2024 39 After successfully weaning a piglet and conquering the immediate post-weaning challenges, the next most important task for the producer is to build a resilient pig that is well equipped to combat future challenges. The importance of building resilience in piglets post-weaning is demonstrated clearly in work by Brossard et al. (2006) which indicates that pig weight at 65 days of age explains 35% of the average daily gain observed between day 65 and reaching 110 kg of body weight. The key message is that any decrease in performance in the early stages of life compromises performance in the growing and finishing phases. WHAT IS RESILIENCE? But what does resilience really mean? Resilience was defined by Colditz and Hine (2016) as “the capacity of the animal to be minimally affected by a disturbance or to rapidly return to the physiological, behavioral, cognitive, health, affective and production states that pertained before exposure to a disturbance.” All the challenges that a pig encounters detract the pig from reaching their inherent genetic potential so their reaction to these challenges dictate the extent of this deviation. Swine geneticists have incorporated the concept of resilience into their breeding programs and demonstrated the clear advantages in performance that can arise from having resilient pigs. One model used to evaluate resilience is the concept of residual feed intake (RFI). Residual feed intake can be explained as the difference between the observed and expected feed intake based on a pig’s average Decreases in performance in the early life of a piglet can compromise performance in the growing and finishing phases. A resilient piglet is well-equipped to withstand future challenges and better enabled to achieve its genetic potential. Two strategies are key to ensuring resilient piglets: improving pre-absorptive nutrient uptake and optimizing post-absorptive nutrient utilization. OPTIMIZING DIGESTIVE EFFICIENCY: THE KEY TO RESILIENT PIGLETS Neil Gannon Global Swine Technical Manager dsm-firmenich Laurent Roger Swine Marketing Manager EMEA dsm-firmenich
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