The breeding goal of suckling piglets is to obtain higher weaning litter weight (weaning piglets are large in number, large in weight and uniform). To cultivate suckling piglets well, the key is to pay attention to the feeding and management of newborn piglets according to the growth and development law and physiological characteristics of suckling piglets.
1. Eat bovine colostrum to fix nipples.
(1) Eating whole colostrum colostrum refers to the mixture of secretions accumulated by sow mammary glands in the third trimester of pregnancy and protein transferred from blood under the action of estrogen and progesterone, usually referring to the milk secreted within 3-5 days after delivery, especially within 3 days. Albumin in colostrum is the most important source for piglets to acquire disease resistance in the early stage. Colostrum contains magnesium salt, which has laxative effect. High initial lactic acid is beneficial to digestive tract activities and can promote meconium discharge. Therefore, after the pig is born, you must ensure that you eat enough colostrum. When piglets are born, they are weak in limbs and inconvenient to move, especially the weak piglets, who often can't find nipples in time, especially in the cold season, piglets may be frozen and lose their ability to breastfeed. Therefore, piglets are required to be dry after birth, put into an incubator immediately after umbilical cord rupture, and all piglets are assisted in breastfeeding immediately after birth. It can also be fed with the birth, so that piglets can eat colostrum as soon as possible and get nutrition as soon as possible. After the sow gives birth, all the piglets can eat enough colostrum. If sows have no milk, piglets should be assisted to eat the colostrum of foster sows as soon as possible.
(2) Piglets with fixed nipples have the habit of sucking milk with fixed nipples. At first, they sucked nipples several times and remained unchanged until weaning. However, newborn piglets often fight for nipples when they start to nurse. The strong pig grabs the nipple in front, while the weak pig can't find the nipple, misses the breastfeeding time and eats little or no milk at all. It is also possible that the sow lies on her side, and the lower nipple is buried under her abdomen, which causes the piglets to compete for the upper nipple and bite the sow nipple, which leads to the sow's refusal to breastfeed. In order to make piglets in the same litter develop in a balanced and healthy way, it is necessary to adopt artificial assistance methods within 2 ~ 3 days after birth to make piglets form the habit of sucking a nipple as soon as possible.
1) nipple fixing principle: fix the weak piglets in the front nipple and the healthy piglets with large newborn weight in the back nipple, and make use of the law that different nipples of sows produce different milk, so that the weak piglets can get a lot of milk to make up for the congenital deficiency. Although the milk production of the rear nipple is insufficient, the weak piglets can still make up for the milk production shortage of the rear nipple because of their strong body.
2) Method of fixing nipples: When there is little difference between piglets in the same litter and there are enough effective nipples, most of them can fix their nipples within 2 ~ 3 days after birth without interference. But if the competition between individuals is fierce, it should be managed. If there is a big difference between piglets in the nest, we should focus on controlling the piglets with large size and small size, and the piglets with medium size can choose freely. Every time, the small individual is assisted to suck milk at the front nipple, and the large individual is fixed at the back nipple. It is necessary to manually control individual piglets with serious competition and disorderly arches. They can put them in a fixed position at the moment before milk is released, or simply stop sucking once or twice to correct their milk grabbing behavior. After two days, the whole litter of piglets can basically fix their nipples when breastfeeding.
Using some auxiliary methods can speed up the fixation of nipples. (1) Label piglets according to the nursing order, and mark common dyes (such as purple potion) which are not easy to fade on different parts of piglets during production, so as to quickly fix the nursing position. If the nursing posture can be kept unchanged for 5 ~ 10 times, it can be fixed on the first day after delivery. ② Training sows to lie on their side is helpful for piglets to identify nipple position as soon as possible. Before the nipple is fixed, the sow can lie on her side, first fix the pig that sucks the nipple, and then fix the pig that sucks the nipple. ③ Fix nipple with "partition". Put a board in the middle of the sow to separate the piglets, so that the number and range of activities of the piglets are relatively reduced, and prevent them from scurrying back and forth because they are looking for nipple positions during breastfeeding.
The sign of fixing nipples is that piglets can be fixed on a nipple to arch and rub their breasts when sows are breastfeeding, and there is no bullying and fighting for nipples. When the sow is breastfeeding, the piglets are quietly sucking milk. Fixing nipples is a meticulous work, which should be done seriously. The speed of nipple fixation is often one of the signs to measure a breeder's sense of responsibility and operational technical ability.
2. Thermal insulation and pressure protection
(1) Heat preservation Because newborn piglets have poor ability to adjust their body temperature to adapt to the environment, poor heat preservation performance (thin skin and thin hair), they need more heat (higher body temperature than adult pigs) and produce less heat (less energy stored in the body), so piglets have higher requirements on environmental temperature, and there is a saying that "piglets are afraid of cold". The direct harm of cold to piglets is freezing to death, and it is also the inducement of crushing, starving and diarrhea. Because piglets encounter low temperature, their body temperature drops, they are slow to move and cannot suck milk, which leads to shock or diarrhea, and eventually leads to being crushed to death, starved to death or sick. The optimum environmental temperature for piglets is 29 ~ 35℃ for 0 ~ 3 days, 25 ~ 29℃ for 3 ~ 7 days, 24 ~ 28℃ for 7 ~ 14 ~ 2 1 day, 22 ~ 26℃ for 2/kloc-0. The measure of heat preservation is to create a warm microclimate environment for piglets alone. Because "little pigs are afraid of cold" and "big pigs are afraid of heat", the optimum temperature for sows is 15℃. If the whole delivery room is heated, a sow will not adapt, which will affect the lactation of sows. Second, it consumes a lot of energy and is uneconomical. Therefore, the temperature of delivery room is often controlled at 65438 05℃ during production, and special insulation measures are taken to improve the environmental temperature of piglets.
1) thick straw insulation: the key to pig heat dissipation lies in the thermal conductivity of the ground. For example, on cement floor, ground conduction heat dissipation accounts for 15%, and on wood floor, wood conduction heat dissipation accounts for 6%. Replacing the cement floor with wooden boards with a thickness of 1.2 cm can increase the ground temperature 12℃. Therefore, in the absence of other heating facilities or heating facilities, in order to enhance the heating effect, thick grass should be spread on the cement floor, with a thickness of more than 5 ~ 10 cm, and a grass baffle should be set at a place not close to the wall to prevent the grass from scattering, but attention should be paid to training piglets to develop the habit of fixed-point excretion, so that the grass can be kept dry without frequent replacement.
2) Infrared lamp insulation: hang the 250-watt infrared lamp above the pigsty or in a special incubator. With a little training, pigs will get used to going in and out of the infrared lamp insulation area or incubator. The temperature of the piglet bed surface can be adjusted by selecting infrared lamps with different powers and adjusting the height of the lamps. For example, when the indoor temperature is 6℃ and 40 ~ 50 cm from the ground, the bed temperature can be kept at 30℃. This kind of equipment is simple, has good heat preservation effect, and has the function of preventing and treating skin diseases. If wooden boards or iron bars are used as partition walls, two adjacent piglets can use light bulbs. In the case of bedding grass, the infrared lamp should keep a proper distance from the ground to prevent fire and prevent sows from entering the pigsty and breaking the light bulb to get an electric shock.
3) Heating by fire kang: A fire kang can be built on one side of the piglet nursery, one for every two adjacent pig beds. The construction method is to use the middle partition wall as the fire path, dig 25 cm wide flue underground on both sides, pave with bricks and smooth with grass mud. This method is similar to the warm bed with resistance wire or hot water source as heat source abroad, with simple equipment, low cost and good effect, and is suitable for cold areas in the north.
4) Electric heating plate: The electric heating plate is the "electric mattress" for piglet heating. It wraps the resistance wire in insulating rubber, which is generally used for temporary insulation of newborn piglets. It is characterized by good heat preservation effect and convenient cleaning.
(2) Stress resistance In production practice, piglets crushed to death generally account for 10% ~ 30% of the total number of deaths, even as high as 50%, and most of them occur within 1 week after birth. The reasons for crushing piglets are as follows: First, sows are weak or obese and slow to respond; Irritable sows easily crush piglets; Primiparous sows often crush piglets because of their lack of experience in feeding their young; Second, piglets are weak, or weak due to illness, or weak due to cold, slow to move, and hoarse, which is not enough to cause shock in sows; Third, management reasons, whipping or grabbing sows, so that sows are frightened; The nest is too long, the pig gets into the haystack, the sow is hard to identify or the pig runs away. In production, anti-stress measures should be taken in view of the above situation: ① Strengthening postpartum nursing. When sows lie down in circles after feeding and defecation, most of them will crush the piglets. So, don't leave people until the sow lies down. If you hear the pig's abnormal cry, you should rescue it in time. Once the sow is found pressing the piglet, pat their ears immediately, let them stand up and rescue the piglet. (2) Set up fences to protect children. Set a baby-rearing fence (which can be used as a feeding fence in the later stage) at one corner or one side of the production circle, and train piglets to get into the habit of returning to the baby-rearing fence to rest quickly after breastfeeding, or adopt artificial timed breastfeeding according to the law of normal lactation of sows, and then drive the piglets back to the baby-rearing fence to rest after breastfeeding.
3. Supplement minerals such as iron and selenium.
(1) Iron deficiency anemia is a common problem in newborn piglets. At birth, the amount of iron in the body is 40 ~ 50 mg, a large part of which is in blood heme and stored in the liver. Piglets with normal growth need about 70 mg of iron every day, and 200 mg before eating at the age of 3 weeks, while piglets can only get 1 mg of iron from breast milk every day, although obviously, without iron supplement, the iron reserve in piglets can only last for 6 ~ 7 days. Generally, at the age of 10, there will be phenomena such as loss of appetite, rough fur, pale skin and growth stagnation caused by iron deficiency. Therefore, piglets are required to supplement iron 2 ~ 3 days after birth. Usually intramuscular or subcutaneous injection of 1 ~ 2ml iron-cobalt dextran mixture (the iron content per ml varies from 50 ~ 150mg, depending on the concentration) can ensure that suckling piglets are not anemic. In order to enhance the effect, you can inject it again after 2 weeks. At present, there are many injections used to supplement iron, such as vitexin.
(2) The daily requirement of selenium for piglets is 0.03 ~ 0.23 mg according to their weight. The selenium content in feed in most areas of China is below 0.05 mg/kg, and that in Heilongjiang and Qinghai provinces and parts of Xinjiang, Sichuan, Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces is below 0.02 mg/kg, so selenium supplementation is particularly important. Specifically, 0.5 ml of 0. 1% sodium selenite-vitamin B mixture can be injected into the muscle of piglets from 3 to 5 days after birth, and 1 ml can be injected before and after weaning. Add 0. 1 mg selenium per kilogram of feed to the piglets that have eaten. Selenium is a highly toxic element. Excessive selenium is easy to cause poisoning, so use it with caution. Add it into the feed and stir it evenly, otherwise it will cause poisoning due to excessive intake of individual piglets.
4. Foster care and nesting
In production, some sows have a large litter size, but they can't feed too many piglets because of their constitution, lactation ability and nipple number. There are also some sows that give birth too little, which makes it uneconomical for sows to feed a few piglets; Even some sows will die if they are not properly treated because they have no milk or die after delivery. The solutions to these problems are foster care and living together. The so-called foster care is to send the lactating or lactating orphans caused by the illness or death of sows after delivery, as well as the surplus piglets that exceed the normal feeding capacity of sows, to another sow or several sows for feeding; Nest-merging refers to combining two or more litters of piglets with few siblings, and feeding them by a sow with good lactation performance and strong motherhood, while the rest sows are urged to breed in advance. Foster care, nesting and nest adjustment are common methods in production. In order to make them successful, we should pay attention to the following questions:
(1) The age of the piglets in foster care should be as close as possible to the age of the piglets in the original nest, preferably no more than 3 days. If it is more than 3 days, bullying will often occur, which will affect the growth and development of piglets. The "stiff pig" born 10 ~ 20 days later was fostered to a sow with a later delivery date. Although its weight is different from that of new piglets, its vitality is not strong, which will not affect the growth and development of new piglets, while the growth and development of "stiff pigs" can be obviously accelerated because they can get enough nutrition.
(2) Piglets in foster care must eat enough colostrum before being sent out, otherwise it is not easy to survive. Therefore, piglets about 3 days after birth are often transferred to sows that have just given birth.
(3) The sow undertaking the foster care task should be docile, with high lactation and free nipples.
(4) Sows mainly recognize their piglets by their sense of smell. In order to prevent sows from smelling different piglets and refusing to breastfeed or biting foster piglets (imported breeds and cultivated breeds generally don't refuse foreign piglets), it is too late for piglets to suck the milk sent to their mothers, so methods of interfering with the sense of smell of sows and starving piglets should be adopted respectively. The work of piglet fostering and nesting is very complicated, but the effect is very good. Therefore, once there is a need for foster care or nesting in production, it should be carried out at any time to ensure the survival of piglets and improve the utilization efficiency of sows.
Step 5: Start taking supplements.
The peak lactation period of sows is 20 ~ 30 days after delivery, which is obviously reduced after 35 days, while the growth rate of piglets is getting faster and faster, so there is a contradiction between the large nutritional demand of piglets and the insufficient supply of breast milk. The satisfaction of breast milk to the nutritional needs of piglets was 84% at the age of 3 weeks, decreased to 20% at the age of 8 weeks, and the average during the whole lactation period was about 39%. It can be seen that breast milk can basically meet the nutritional needs of piglets before 3 weeks old, and piglets do not need to eat feed. However, in order to ensure that piglets can eat a lot of feed quickly after 3 weeks of age to make up for the shortage of breast milk nutrition supply, piglets must be trained to start eating before 3 weeks of age, and early weaned piglets should start adding feed in advance.
(1) Start feeding and train piglets to transition from breast milk to feeding, which is called start feeding, induced feeding or induced feeding. It is the primary work in piglet feeding, and its significance has two aspects:
1) Exercise the digestive tract, improve digestion ability, and get ready to eat a lot of feed. Pepsin exists in the stomach of piglets in the form of inactive zymogen, but after 20 days of age, due to the accumulation of hydrochloric acid secretion, the pH in the stomach drops below 5.4, thus activating zymogen and showing digestive ability. In piglets that don't start eating early, plant protein can't be used until about 35 days old. Feeding in advance can promote the development of gastrointestinal tract, stimulate the stomach wall, make it secrete hydrochloric acid, activate zymogen in advance, and have digestive function, so that piglets can eat a lot of digestive feed when the breast milk is reduced at about 3 weeks old, ensure the normal growth and development of piglets and improve the survival rate of piglets.
2) Reduce the occurrence of white dysentery. Due to the stimulation of feed, the gastric wall secretes hydrochloric acid in advance, forming an acidic environment, which can effectively inhibit the growth and reproduction of various microorganisms and prevent dysentery. Train piglets to start eating as soon as possible. According to the experiment, the later the piglet starts to eat, the lower its weight. Piglets that start eating at 7 days old can eat 245 grams of feed every day at 30 days old, while piglets that start eating at 14 days old only eat 180 grams of feed at 30 days old.
At present, piglets are generally required to start eating 5 ~ 7 days after birth. When inducing piglets to start eating, we should pay attention to the following aspects according to their physiological habits: Using the exploratory behavior of piglets, 6-7-day-old piglets began to grind their teeth and their gums were itchy. At this time, piglets often leave the sow and act alone, exploring things on the ground by smelling, arching, biting, etc., especially like chewing hard and dirty things such as grass, sawdust and grain in sow feces. Using this exploratory behavior of piglets, when piglets are free to move, they can sprinkle some open food (mostly hard particles) on the wall of the supplementary feeding room for piglets to arch and bite, or put the open food into a cylinder with holes around it and sealed at both ends for piglets to pick up and eat the particles falling from the cylinder during play.
After 10 day old, when piglets can eat some granular feed, they can be fed coarse diluent, dry powder, granules or crumbs such as tender grass, vegetables, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, etc., and induced in a small pot, and the feed amount is adjusted with the increase of feed intake. Generally, piglets can eat normally at the age of 20 days, and the food intake at the age of 30 days is greatly increased. Taking advantage of piglet's sweet and fragrant habits, we can choose fragrant feed, such as fried corn, sorghum, barley and soybean grains, or choose sweet food, such as adding flavoring agent and sugar to piglet's starter.
Use the characteristics of piglets to imitate the behavior of sows and feed. When there is no feeding room, the sow's trough can be lowered, so that the piglets can choose feed with the sow when eating. Therefore, the height of the inner edge of sow trough should not exceed 10 cm. Piglets 1 week-old, if weather permits, should be released to the playground to feed with big pigs.
(2) Feeding According to the law of sow lactation and piglet growth and development, the main nutritional source of piglets after birth 1 month depends on breast milk, and then gradually transitions to feeding. If you start eating early, you can ensure that you can eat a lot of feed around the age of 25 and enter a vigorous feeding stage. At this time, feeding corn, sorghum and other foods can no longer meet the nutritional needs of piglets for protein and so on, so it is necessary to feed the whole mixture instead. According to the nutritional needs of the same weight stage, the standard diet requires high energy, high protein, comprehensive nutrition, good palatability and easy digestion, and antibiotics or vitamins can be added as needed.
Piglets should pay attention to the following aspects when supplementing feed: pay attention to feed types. Piglets should use granular feed, semi-dry powder (1 mixture mixed with 0.5 water evenly) or dry powder, which is beneficial for piglets to eat more dry matter, chew slowly, digest well and gain weight quickly. However, thinner and cooked porridge will reduce the dry matter intake of piglets, dilute digestive juice, affect digestion, easily pollute pens, cause dysentery and affect weight gain.
The number of supplementary feeding should be more to adapt to the digestive ability and growth and development of piglets. Pigs start eating early, are greedy and need a lot of nutrition, but their stomachs are small and they excrete quickly, so it is best to feed them freely. If dietary feeding is adopted, the number of supplementary feeding should be increased. Generally, the feeding times should be at least 5 ~ 6 times a day, and one of them should be placed at night.
Ensure clean and sufficient drinking water. Piglets grow rapidly and metabolize vigorously, so they need more water, so they should ensure water supply. If the drinking water supply is insufficient, it will lead to slow growth of piglets or diarrhea caused by drinking dirty water. Increase feed intake and strive for maximum weaning weight. The growth and development of naturally suckling piglets during lactation are related to the birth weight and development, the lactation of sows, and the quantity and quality of supplementary feed.
6. Prevent stiff pigs and dysentery.
(1) Prevention and treatment of short-legged pigs Due to improper feeding management or congenital deficiency, individual piglets lose their luster, their fur is unkempt, their heads are big and their bodies are small, their development is blocked, and their growth is stagnant and lifeless. They are called "stiff pigs" and can be divided into fetal stiffness, milk stiffness, disease stiffness and food stiffness. Therefore, we should strengthen the feeding management of sows during pregnancy to ensure the normal growth and development of fetuses, prevent inbreeding and avoid fetal rigidity; Strengthen the management of lactating sows, improve the lactation yield of sows, fix nipples within 2 ~ 3 days after delivery, fix small and thin piglets on the front nipples of sows, cultivate suckling pigs or super pigs in time, ensure sufficient colostrum, and supplement iron in time to prevent milk stiffness; Timely prevention and control, deworming, special care for thin piglets, so as not to form disease stiffness; Breastfeeding should be comprehensive in nutrition, easy to digest and absorb, and avoid single feeding. At the same time, be careful not to let the pigs overeat, so as not to form food stiffness. Pigs with hard milk can be fostered in the sow's nest on the night of delivery to help them fix their nipples and make up for their own shortcomings. It can also be treated with drugs. Vitamins, inosinic acid or injections are often given during production, and the effect is good. Specifically, 500 micrograms of vitamins and 2 ml of inosine injection were mixed and injected into muscles, and repeated after an interval of 65438 0 weeks. Feeding management has been strengthened, feeding high-quality protein feed and high-quality green feed to supplement nutrition, and giving special care at the same time.
(2) Prevention of dysentery is one of the most common diseases in suckling piglets. Yellow dysentery and white dysentery are common in clinic, which seriously threaten the growth and survival of piglets. There are many factors that cause the onset of piglets, which are generally caused by colds, indigestion and bacterial infections. These three levels should be handled well in daily management. On the basis of determining and controlling the pathogenic factors, comprehensive measures can be taken to achieve better results.
The main preventive measures are as follows: ① sows should be fed at full price during pregnancy, especially with more green feed to ensure normal reproductive conditions. The sow was injected with Escherichia coli vaccine 2 1 day before delivery. ② Thoroughly disinfect the delivery room before delivery, keep the delivery room dry during the whole lactation period, keep the temperature appropriate and the air fresh, and pay special attention to the insulation of piglets. (3) The diet of lactating sows should be complete, ensuring adequate vitamins and maintaining a relatively stable diet. Sudden changes in feed often cause changes in sow milk and diarrhea in piglets. ④ Prepare complete diets for piglets according to feeding standard, and pay attention to the quality of protein in the diets. ⑤ In the event of piglet diarrhea, it is necessary to improve sow feeding, improve the hygiene of piggery, and disinfect and treat piglets in time, instead of simply treating piglets, and more importantly, eliminate the source of infection.
Timely castration
Whether and when male and female piglets are castrated depends on the use of piglets, the production level of pig farms and the varieties of piglets. China local pigs have early sexual maturity. If fattening pigs are not castrated, after a certain stage, with the development and maturity of reproductive organs, there will be periodic estrus performance, which will affect appetite and growth rate. If the boar is not castrated, its meat has a strong sense of shame and can hardly be eaten directly. So local piglets must be fattened after castration. If the breeding is a binary or ternary hybrid of cultivated varieties or local varieties with high management level, pigs can be slaughtered in about 6 months, sows can be fattened directly without castration, and boars still have to be castrated.
Castration within 3 months after birth generally has little effect on the growth rate and feed utilization rate of piglets, and the factors to be considered are the difficulty of operation and the speed of wound healing. The older the piglet is or the heavier its weight is, the harder it is to castrate and the slower the wound heals. Therefore, boars are generally required to be castrated before the age of 20, and sows before the age of 30 ~ 40. When boars are castrated at the age of 30 days, the lactation of sows decreases. If piglets are not fed in time, their nutrition will be reduced and their resistance will be low. Therefore, some farmers at home and abroad tend to castrate male piglets about 2 weeks old. At this time, the weight of male piglets is small, and one person can handle it, and the castration wound heals quickly.
After castration, special attention should be paid to prevent big piglets from biting the wounds of small piglets, causing excessive blood loss and affecting the vitality of piglets. The pigsty should be kept clean to prevent wound infection.
Step 8 vaccinate
Piglets should be vaccinated against swine fever, erysipelas, pneumonia and piglet paratyphoid before and after 30 days of age; If necessary, swine fever can be immunized in advance; Whether to vaccinate against other diseases depends on the epidemic situation in this area and the health status of pigs in this area. See the section on disease prevention and control for specific inoculation methods and requirements. It is necessary to avoid castration and immunization of piglets before and after weaning 1 week, so as not to aggravate the stimulation and affect the weight gain and survival of piglets.