Feeding strategies in pig production: Sows and their piglets

Abstract The main goal of the swine industry is to achieve more efficient pig production and maximize their economic return, reaching high-quality pig products without compromising animal welfare or environmental issues. But this can be only reached with a complete, efficient herd including all of the physiological phases, gilts, sows, litters, nursery pigs and growing-finishing pigs until slaughter. However, as sows and litters only contribute with a small fraction of the total herd costs, not enough attention has been paid to the earliest steps in pork production. Therefore, proper feeding strategies applied and combined between sows and their litters may represent a carry-over effect until slaughter and may contribute to optimize herd profitability by achieving proper sow longevity, litter size and weight, piglet performance and body weight variability. All of them are overlapped items, finally contributing to and accounting for the efficient and competitiveness of the swine industry.