EXPERIENCES ON SEGREGATED EARLY WEANING (SEW) OF SWINE

The ongoing trend towards SEW has arrived the eastern European countri es as well. In order to examine the effect of 17 days weaning on produ ction in a large pig production unit there were the following evaluati ons, carried out in the following steps: Step one: Two groups of sows were randomly formed before weaning: Group one (90 sows) were weaned a t day 21 of lactation. Group two (109 sows) were weaned at day 17 of l actation. The following parameters were evaluated: A: Weaning to estru s interval in days B: Liveborn litter size at the following parturitio n Step 2: The number of weaned piglets that were the subject to the ne xt evaluation were not the complete number of the weaned ones from the sows of group one and two, us due to technical reasons some of the an imals could not be included in the second step of the evaluation. Grou p one: 901 piglets conventionally weaned at day 21 of lactation. Group : two: 798 piglets SEW weaned at day 17 of lactation. The following pa rameters were evaluated during 6 weeks after weaning: C: Average daily weight (ADG) gain, measured weekly in gram in each group D: Mortality in percent in each group Tn step 1 the following results were evaluat ed: the sows in group one she-wed a significant shorter (p<0.05) weani ng to estrus interval when compared to the sows in group two (5.65 +/- 2.30 vs. 6.38 +/- 2.31), but there was no significant difference rega rding Liveborn litter size between the groups (10.87 +/- 2.01 vs. 10.7 4 +/- 2.22). Regarding step 2 the group two (SEW) showed, when compare d to the group one (21 day weaning) during the first three weeks after weaning lesser weekly measured daily gains (185 +/- 13; 184 +/- 41; 3 61 +/- 23 vs. 201 +/- 11; 202 +/- 21; 365 +/- 32). Following the third week after weaning there existed a significant (p<0.05) better weekly measured average daily gain in the SEW weaned group (group 2) when co mpared to group one (401 +/- 34; 412 +/- 30; 439 +/- 41 vs. 433 +/- 29 ; 465 +/- 31; 543 +/- 29). Regarding mortality both of the groups reve aled a very low percent of losses (group one 0.89% vs. group two 0.75% ), which differences were not significant. Step 3: retrospective evalu ation of culling of the sows. Group one (412 sows) were SEW weaned in three consecutive weanings at day 14-17 of lactation. Group two (597 s ows) were weaned in three consecutive weanings at day 21-28 of lactati on. The reasons for culling included no observed postweaning estrus, r epeat breeders, abort, small litter size, locomotor problems, peripart urient diseases (PDC/MMA), small weaning litter weight, old age, uroge nital diseases, overweight. The calculated average ''Culling Rate'' sh owed no significant differences between the groups (46.4% in group one vs. 47.1% in the group two).