Swine - Advanced Birthright Nutrition® - Milk Supplementation
Why supplement all litters with Ralco/Advanced Birthright Nutrition® Baby Pig Milk Replacer?
The Sow is not the PERFECT Rearing Machine
- Sows do not always expose every nipple on the bottom row. Individual pigs can miss out.
- Sometimes there are plenty of nipples, but there is not enough physical space at the udder. Individual piglets can be crowded out.
- The milk flow is not even along the udder. The front nipples give more milk and the heaviest pigs get the front nipples. If you want a nice uniform litter, you must supplement milk.
- Many times more pigs are born than the sow has nipples.
- Individual nipples can be damaged.
These limitations of the sow can negatively effect every litter in the farrowing barn. Supplementing litters with Advanced Birthright Nutrition® Baby Pig Milk Replacer helps overcome the limitations of the sow.
The Sow Cannot Produce Enough Milk
The baby pig requires more milk to maximize growth than the sow can provide. Sow milk yield becomes limiting to maximum piglet growth between 5-7 days of age. After this point, the differences between milk need and milk supply progressively increases.
Estimated daily milk production for the sow was 25.3 lbs./day (maximum), whereas milk production necessary to achieve optimal performance was 44.66 lbs./day. This means each litter needs 19.36 lbs./day additional milk to reach maximum growth potential.
Pigs reared artificially with milk replacer (12.5% solids) were 53% heavier at 21 days of age (21.56 lbs.-vs-14.08 lbs.). Artificially reared pigs were on average 7.48 lbs. heavier than strictly sow-reared pigs.