365 Effect of feeding a blend of short, medium, and long chain fatty acids and triglycerides to lactating sows on piglet growth, feed intake, and survivability to weaning
Abstract Dietary fat may impact energy intake and palatability of feed, and influence energy storage. The objective of this experiment was to test the hypothesis that including a blend of short, medium, and long chain fatty acids and triglycerides (R2 Feed Energy, Pleasant Hill, IA) in lactation diets will reduce pre-weaning mortality and increase litter weaning weight. On day 114 of gestation, dietary treatments were initiated: 1) Negative control diet and 3.2% of an all-vegetable oil blend, (Trt B); 2) Control diet with replacement of oil blend with 3.2% proprietary blend of short, medium, and long chain fatty acids and triglycerides (Trt R). Sows (n = 207; L02 Cross; PIC, Hendersonville, TN) were allotted to treatment based on body condition and parity. There were 88 parity 0 and 1 sows: 45 on TRT R and 43 on TRT B, and 119 parity 2 to 6 sows: 59 on TRT R and 60 on TRT B. Average sow parity was 2.85. Sows received 1.56 kg of their assigned diet twice per day prior to farrowing. After farrowing, sows were fed ad libitum with free access to water. Data on sow ADFI, litter weaning weight, and number of piglets weaned per sow were evaluated using PROC MIXED (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC). Compared with B, sows fed R consumed more feed (6.44 vs. 5.90 kg/d; P < 0.025). There was no difference in weaning weight (6.1 vs. 5.9kg; P > 0.10) or number weaned per litter (11.44 vs. 11.28; P > 0.10), for treatments R and B, respectively. There was no difference in sow body condition score after weaning (2.07 vs. 1.93; P = 0.18) for treatments R and B, respectively. The addition of R2 to sow lactation diets improved sow feed intake, but not piglet growth or number weaned.
