Document Type

Article

2001-27

Publication Date

2002

Keywords

Weaned pigs, Nursery group size, Age at weaning

Summary

Current trends in the swine industry are for management of pigs in larger groups well beyond that which has been recommended. With larger groups there is the potential for higher stocking rates because of more effective pig space per pen, savings in cost of dividing fences, and, in some cases, feeding equipment. However, with larger groups, more initial weight variation within a pen would be expected due to less sorting and more social competition because of more pigs per pen. It is unclear if these potentially negative factors would result in poorer pig performance during the nursery period and/or more weight variation as pigs leave the nursery negating the savings in fixed building costs. The research reported herein was designed to evaluate the effect of doubling nursery pig group size from 24 to 48 on performance, survival, and weight variation for pigs weaned at 1 O to 20 and 20 to 30 days of age and provided the same unit of floor space per pig.

Number of Pages

5

Format

application/pdf

Language

en

Publisher

South Dakota State University

Rights

Copyright © 2001

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