Piglet health
The early life stage of a pig is a stressful period, during which young piglets are highly vulnerable to disease. This can lead to serious consequences for the animal’s lifelong health and ultimately its productivity.
Supporting piglet health
Piglets are weaned before their immune system is fully matured, making them very susceptible to various types of pathogens. Infection pressure, shedding patterns, vertical and horizontal transmission should be considered as critical parts of the infection chain of pathogens throughout the complete swine herd. One of the most serious pathogens is Streptococcus suis, causing Septicemia and resulting in sudden death, meningitis, arthritis or endocarditis. Coughing, sneezing, labored abdominal breathing, reduced growth rates and potentially mortality are all signs of respiratory disease. Overcrowded and dusty housing, poor ventilation and/or environmental conditions, along with the presence of PRRS virus, can exacerbate respiratory diseases. Optimal nutrition and health status improve a pig’s growth and feeding efficiency and support responsibly keeping piglets healthy.
Taming diarrhoea by boosting gut health
Piglets are weaned between 3 and 4 weeks of age, when they face stressors including diet, social and environmental changes. The multiple stressors associated with the weaning process pose a threat to the piglet’s gastrointestinal tract by worsening the overgrowth of bacteria directly involved in the occurrence of post-weaning diarrhoea. Stress also increases a piglet’s susceptibility to other viral and bacterial infections.
Fostering vitality
The survival and vitality of piglets has always been key to the sow reproductive performance. Piglet losses consist of perinatal, pre-weaning and post-weaning mortality. Most pre-weaning mortality occurs in the first few days of life, and sometimes perinatal and postnatal mortality have common underlying causes. Reports of stillbirth rate in pigs vary between 5% and 10% [1-4] in published literature, however, in highly prolific herds, stillbirth can be as high as 14%. Combined with pre-weaning mortality and perinatal mortality, the total losses to weaning can be 15% to 25% in high prolific herds. All are linked to sow peripartal syndrome. Post-weaning mortality is usually lower, ranging from 1% to 5%, depending on several factors like quality of the piglets at weaning and health and disease challenges.
By paying close attention to weaning management and using an approach that integrates feed, farm management and health, any negative impacts of weaning on piglet health and performance can be reduced.
