What question did this study set out to answer?

To determine the relationship between lactation average daily feed intake, litter average daily gain, and maternal body weight changes in gilts and multiparous sows from farrowing to weaning.

September 18, 2026Translational Animal ScienceOpen Access

Effect of sow feed intake on litter growth and sow body weight change from farrowing to weaning

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Authors

MSMikayla S. SpinlerKansas State University JWJason C WoodworthKansas State University MTMike D TokachKansas State University

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Implication

Retrospective analysis reveals increased lactation feed intake improves litter growth and limits weight loss in gilts and sows, indicating maternal body reserves strongly support piglet gains.

Key Points

To determine the relationship between lactation average daily feed intake, litter average daily gain, and maternal body weight changes in gilts and multiparous sows from farrowing to weaning.
Retrospective analysis pooling data from 991 gilts and 3,393 multiparous sows across eight studies.
Categorized lactation feed intake into quintiles and evaluated linear and quadratic orthogonal polynomial contrasts.
Applied backward stepwise regression to model litter growth and maternal weight change as functions of intake and litter characteristics.
Increasing feed intake linearly increased litter average daily gain (P < 0.05) and weaning litter size in both gilts and multiparous sows.
Increased feed intake reduced body weight loss quadratically in gilts (P < 0.05) and shifted multiparous sows linearly from weight loss to gain (P < 0.05), with over 80% of gilts losing weight versus over 50% of multiparous sows gaining weight.
Each 1 kg increase in daily feed intake increased litter average daily gain by 107 g in gilts and 60 g in sows, while decreasing maternal weight loss by 4.74 kg and 5.19 kg, respectively.

Cite This Study

Spinler et al. (2026) studied this question.

synapsesocial.com/papers/6aad0bc6de0393d728b8a3f0 https://doi.org/10.1093/tas/txag140

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Implication

Retrospective analysis reveals increased lactation feed intake improves litter growth and limits weight loss in gilts and sows, indicating maternal body reserves strongly support piglet gains.

Effect of sow feed intake on litter growth and sow body weight change from farrowing to weaning

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Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

Effect of sow feed intake on litter growth and sow body weight change from farrowing to weaning

Discussion

Member takes

Implication

Key Points

Cite This Study

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