Evaluation of site and age of weaning on pig growth performance

Site-segregated early weaning (SSEW) refers to the practice of weaning pigs from the sow at an early age and placing them in a nursery that is physically isolated from the breeding herd. An experiment involving 369 pigs was conducted at the Prairie Swine Center to investigate the impact of SSEW on pig performance when the herd of origin has a high health status and when housing and management conditions are kept as similar as possible across weaning regime. Three treatments were compared: weaning at 21+/-3 d and keeping 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 moving 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 56-d body weight (P < .05) by 12.5 and 8.3% compared with OSEW and Control, respectively. The improvement appeared to be the result of improvements primarily in feed intake but also due to enhanced efficiency of nutrient utilization. This experiment confirms that SSEW results in significant improvements in 56-d weights, even when the herd of origin has a relatively high health status.