Cargill Announces Piglet Nutrition Program

By Amanda Brodhagen, Farms.com

Cargill recently presented a global nutrition program to help advance piglet liveability. The program aims to help pig farmers increase the life expectancy of their young pigs through a feeding regime that focuses on neonatal nutrition.

According to Cargill, early research suggests that its neonatal pig nutrition program can increase pig livability by as much as 6 per cent.

"With average global piglet livability of about 82%, the mortality of young pigs is a critical challenge for producers around the world, even in the most advanced operations," Brooke Humphrey, Cargill Animal Nutrition global swine technology director said in a release. "At Cargill, we have discovered ways to leverage piglet nutrition and feed processing to help increase livability through our advanced formulation system."

The feed program concentrates on improving neonatal pig nutrition by helping piglets gain weight during the first 28 days of life. Research has shown that mortality is the highest from birth until weaning, approximately 18 per cent. With the new feeding program, the average weaning weight has increased from 6.5 kg to 8.0 kg. The program seeks to encourage maximum feed intake, which correlates with weight gain and a greater likelihood of liveability.

Cargill’s neonatal program is available in liquid and dry feeds. The feed options is expected to be rolled out regionally across the United States over the next year.