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Modern sows are more precocious, productive, and therefore, may have higher nutritional requirements. Despite sow nutrition accuracy having improved in recent years, nowadays we still have limited information about vitamin influence in the porcine production. The lack of knowledge in this field leads to the adoption, by many commercial practices, of dietary vitamin levels above the values suggested by nutritional tables. Regarding this information, the aim of this study was to assess the effect of the level of vitamin supplementation to sows in gestation and lactation and to their litters. The parameters evaluated were the reproductive performance and body condition of the sows and the performance and immune profile of the litters until slaughter. For that purpose, the study was split into two phases. The first phase used 104 sows, assigned to be randomized to blocks according to parity, submitted until 21 days of lactation to two treatments: control–standard (standard levels of vitamins) and test–elevated (elevated levels of vitamins). Each sow and its respective litter were considered an experimental unit. The sows body condition score, back fat thickness and reproductive performance was monitored. In the second phase, 60 barrows and 60 gilts at 21 days of age were studied until slaughter at 164 days of age. The piglets were assigned to randomized blocks according to the weight and sex of the animals in a 2×2 factorial arrangement, with 10 replicates per treatment. Following the same treatments of the first phase, the piglets were evaluated for performance, mortality rate and humoral immune response.
As a result, vitamin supplementation had no positive effects on the reproductive parameters or body composition of sows. However, in the second phase, those piglets whose mothers were fed with high levels of vitamins showed higher performance, reported as higher weight gain.
In conclusion, higher vitamin supplementation of sows during gestation and lactation had no positive effect on the reproductive parameters or body condition, but beneficial results are observed at weaning for those piglets from sows fed the high vitamin level.
Santos RKS, Novais AK, Borges DS, Alves JB, Dario JGN, Frederico G, Pierozan CR, Batista JP, Pereira M, Silva CA. Increased vitamin supplement to sows, piglets and finishers and the effect in productivity. Animal. 2020; 14(1): 86-94. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1751731119001927
