University of Sydney Friedman from Illinois
When the piglets do not get enough milk in the first weeks of life, the chances of prospering decrease considerably. In the American pork production system, piglets with limited access to their mother’s milk are generally “nourishing” with other sows. But in the European Union, a different solution is gaining ground. In certain circumstances, the undernourished piglets are raised artificially with the replacement of milk, imitating the power configurations used in biomedical research.
A new study at the University of Illinois Urbana -Champaign poses a deceptfully simple question – what is the best way to feed the highly raised pigs? The answer has implications not only for agriculture but also for biomedical research where pigs are used to study different aspects of human medicine.
“The main driver factor of this study was to fill the gap between agriculture and biomedical worlds,” said Kaitlyn Sommer, author of the main study, doctoral researcher in the Department of Animal Sciences, which is part of the College of Agricultural Sciences, Consumers and Environmental of the University of Illinois.
By testing different food strategies, researchers can better understand how nutrition at the start of the life of a pork can affect their growth, metabolism, behavior and global well-being.
In the study, 85 piglets were weaned at the age of two days and highly raised with a comprehensive nutritional milk replacement. Half of the porcelets were able to drink freely milk – known as ad lit or free diet – while the other half received carefully measured doses depending on body weight, imitating the frequency and quantity that a porcelet would obtain a sow. During the 15 -day food study, the team followed everything from the body weight of the piglets, the concentration of insulin, behavior and even the composition of soft tissues.
The results were striking.
“Ad Libitum pigs have drank more milk overall and have gained more weight,” said Sommer.
However, there was no significant difference in the composition of soft tissues between the two groups at the end of the study. The researchers found that body fat and muscle protein content was comparable between Ad Libitum piglets and “prescribed diet”. The main distinction was in the speed with which they grew up.
“When we compare the amount of milk they have consumed in relation to their body weight, ad libitum groups and prescribed food groups have consumed similar quantities,” said Sommer. “This suggests that Ad Libitum pigs are simply developing more quickly, perhaps due to differences in insulin production.”
An important measure during the study was the concentration of insulin in the blood circulation of piglets.
Ryan Dilger, author of the senior study and professor of animal sciences at the University of Illinois, said: “Insulin is a large part of the production of amino acids, which are the constituent elements of proteins. Porcelets ingest amino acids in the form of proteins, and insulin is responsible for the realization of these amino acids towards the construction of the skeletal muscle. ”
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Sommer explained that the piglets in the Ad Libitum group ate less frequent meals. This led to prolonged periods when their insulin levels were higher than the threshold necessary to trigger muscle growth. On the other hand, the pigs of the prescribed food calendar ate more frequent meals, but they consumed smaller volumes of milk every hour. Although this program is more closely like the disappointment of the milk milk, the concentration of insulin in these piglets has not always reached the anabolic threshold, where the muscle building takes place.
In addition to muscle growth and insulin concentration, the team also followed the way pigs have moved around their enclosures. Using high -tech cameras and automated monitoring systems, researchers were able to analyze the favorite location of piglets.
Sommer said: “The prescribed food pigs spent more time near the milk bowl and showed more behaviors related to food.
And yes, there were toys.
In the second try, piglets were enriched, including toys and towels, and they particularly attached themselves to them.
“They snuggle up with them and got angry when we took them for cleaning,” said Sommer.
While the image of a porcelet curled up in a towel may seem adorable, science is both practical and applicable. In production agriculture, understanding how access to milk affects behavior could help reduce the risk of porcelet crushing. Chammer piglets can stay closer to the sow, increasing their probability of injuring themselves. In the laboratory, these results can help researchers refine artificial food protocols for high pigs to improve biomedical research. This is more and more important because pigs are often used as a model to study human nutrition and health. Due to their genetic similarities with humans, pigs provide information that mice and other species cannot.
Dilger said: “We particularly use pigs to study parts of the gastrointestinal tract, parts of the immune system and in our laboratory specifically, brain function.”
“Each study opens the door to new questions. What has really stood out in this work is how much we feed pigs can influence everything we try to measure,” said Dilger.
The objective is to continue to fill the gap between the agricultural and biomedical applications of piglets farming. With future studies exploring additional behavioral and physiological results, the team hopes to continue to refine porcelet farming strategies.
Sommer said, “There is still so much to learn. But, each piece brings us closer to understanding how management practices early in life can help piglets prosper and start them in the right direction. ”
The study, “the style of food changes the growth and behavior of artificially high pigs”, is published in the Journal of Animal Science. The authors include Kaitlyn M. Sommer, Loretta Sutkus, Pradeep Senthil and Ryan N. Dilger.
Dilger is also affiliated with the Division of Nutritional Sciences, the Neuroscience Program, the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, The Center for Digital Agriculture, The National Center for Supercominuting Applications, the Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, the Illinois Institution Care and Use Committee, and the Vice-Chaninity Office Innovation.