On-demand: Webinar on liveable piglets

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Theme of the webinar was “Maintaining piglet performance through and evolving regulatory landscape.” Content-wise it builds on an earlier webinar held by sister title All About Feed and Cargill Animal Nutrition, held in March 2022. In that webinar, the topic was ‘Feed of the Future’

‘Liveability is what pig industry should focus at’

Alcina Ascensao started off the webinar. She is a global technical lead at Cargill Animal Nutrition and held a presentation called ‘Disrupt or be disrupted’. Ascensao pointed to the regulatory changes in the EU which have disrupted the industry, like the ban on growth promoting antibiotics (since 2006) and the ban on high-level use of zinc oxide (2022).

She explained that with the trend of larger litters, there are more stillborn piglets (3-8%) and it also leads to higher pre-weaning mortality (10-20%). She pointed to the fact that rather than focusing on piglets/sow/year, the industry should be thinking about liveability. Liveability, she said, gives a focus on the percentage of potential viable piglets a sow can raise.

She introduced the nutritional concept Livapig – a technology based on nitric oxide technology to boost farrowing performance and improve liveability. Studies have shown the concept leads to a 3.2% improvement of liveability, as well as 540 g higher weaning weight.

Supporting maximum performance

The second speaker at the webinar was Leandro Hackenhaar, also global technical lead at Cargill Animal Nutrition. He set off where Ascensao stopped as he continued at the moment of weaning. He spoke about Neopigg Shield, a nutritional solution for post-weaning piglets combining four modes of action to support maximum performance. That included a mucin effect, protein digestion, support of intestinal flora and immune regulation.

Effects observed in trials included fewer diarrhoea so less medication is needed; a better quality stool; a higher average daily gain (ADG) and a better uniformity.

Click here to review the entire webinar