A Case Report On Double Nursing; An Alternative Nursing Strategy For Hyper-prolific Sow Herds

Background and objective In hyper prolific sow herds the number of live born piglets easily exceeds the number of available teats and farmers use several strategies to feed the surplus piglets; e.g. cross fostering, supplying milk replacers or early weaning. This abstract describes the design and application of a so called ‘double nursing’ (DN) strategy to nurse the surplus piglets. A retrospective study on herd performance data, from a three year period was performed to assess the effect of DN on preweaning mortality in DN litter and reproduction parameters of the subsequent litter. Material and Methods DN sows nurse two matched groups of piglets (by number and age) from ±12 to 24 hours after parturition until weaning. Group 1 is the litter born from the DN sow and group 2 consists of an entire litter from one donor-sow. The donor-sow is then available as foster sow for surplus piglets from the same farrowing batch. DN sows must meet a number of criteria. Multivariable analyses, correcting for parity and year of farrowing, were used. Since a three year period was analyzed, multiple observations per sow were present. This was taken into account in the analyses, using a random sow effect Results Preweaning mortality was lower in DNS (5.1%) than in single nursing sows (7.1%). A small negative effect of DNS on litter size in subsequent litters is observed (-0.95 Total Born Piglets). No negative effect on interval weaning to conception was found. Discussion & conclusion In this herd, DNS proved to be a successful strategy. The authors want to articulate that the effects of DN that were found in this study only apply when sows meet the specific criteria.