Crystal Levesque, PhD
Assistant Professor - Monogastric Nutrition
Department of Animal Science
South Dakota State University, Brookings, SD
Precision feeding offers opportunity for improving swine herd efficiency and reducing overall production cost where nutrients are supplied sufficient to meet animal requirements with minimal excess and relies on accurate mathematical models to estimate nutrient requirements. Previously, implementation of revised sow feeding strategies were limited by barn design (i.e. a single feed line); the move to more group-housed gestation facilities incorporating electronic feeding systems allows the use of multiple gestation diets. As a result, the question of the potential benefit of phase feeding is again at the fore front. While evidence for negative impacts of over- or under-feeding energy appear reasonably clear, questions remain regarding amino acid supply. Determining the value of a sow feeding program is more complex than for growing pigs. Beyond feed cost and common litter productivity indicators, influence of feeding strategies on offspring post-wean performance and resilience to health challenges in a current and subsequent parities has potential to impact overall production economics; notwithstanding the influence of parity. In general, the focus of the debate has primarily been on amino acid supply in late gestation given the dramatic increase in growth of fetal and pregnancy-related tissues during this stage. What evidence is available suggests altering amino acid supply can impact pre-wean mortality with little influence on litter size or mean piglet birth weight in a single reproductive cycle. However, sows are expected to remain within the herd over numerous parities and the impact of ‘deficiency’ is more likely to be evident in offspring of subsequent parities, yet little information is available considering offspring post-wean performance in any parity. Altered gestational amino acid supply may provide a greater opportunity in gilts, particularly, given that reproductive performance in the gilt pregnancy impacts lifetime reproductive performance, important opportunity for herd improvement. This paper will identify new information in relation to sow amino acid nutrition that suggests opportunities may exist to improve piglet robustness and overall sow farm productivity through altered amino acid supply in early and late gestation.