Evaluation of site and age of weaning on pig growth performance

Site-segregated early meaning (SSEW) refers to the practice of weaning pigs from the sow at an early age and placing them in a nursery that is physica lly isolated from the breeding herd. An experiment involving 369 pigs was c onducted at the Prairie Swine Center to investigate the impact of SSEW on p ig performance when the herd of origin has a high health status and when ho using and management conditions are kept as similar as possible across mean ing regime. Three treatments were compared: weaning at 21 +/- 3 d and keepi ng the pigs on-site in an all-in-all-out nursery room (Control), weaning at 12 +/- 2 d of age and keeping the pigs on-site in a separate but identical all-in-all-out nursery room (OSEW), or weaning at 12 +/- 2 d of age and mo ving the pigs off-site to an all-in-all-out nursery room located 16 km from the Center (SSEW). Ventilation, feed, penning, feeders, and drinkers were kept as similar as possible for all treatments. Off-site weaning improved 5 6-d body weight (P <.05) by 12.5 and 8.3% compared with OSEW and Control, r espectively The improvement appeared to be the result of improvements prima rily in feed intake but also due to enhanced efficiency of nutrient utiliza tion. This experiment confirms that SSEW results in significant improvement s in 56-d weights, even when the herd of origin has a relatively high healt h status.