Prolific sow and suckling piglet nutrition

Abstract

Over the last few decades, litter sizes and the number of weaned piglets per sow per year (PSY) have been improved considerably, especially driven by improved sow's prolificity via selection. With an increase of 0.2 piglets/year over the past 20 years, which we already observe in practice with large litters at birth (Quiniou, 2012), the PSY in the United States (23.2 to 25.0) and European Union (24.0 to 27.8) has increased considerably from 2008 to 2017 (PigCHAMP and AHDB-BPEX yearly report 2008-2017).