PSIV-1 Nutrient Intervention During Gilt Development Leads to Effects on Progeny Growth Responses

Abstract To elucidate the effect of early life dietary nutrient level and vitamin D source during gilt development on progeny growth performance, equal number of weaning age piglets (n = 72) were selected from each of 4 sow treatments group. All pigs were fed a common 3,000 ppm zinc diet for first two weeks postweaning to allow for accommodating the weaning process. At the beginning of week 3, pigs were sorted by sow parity and BW within gender and stratified based on maternal dietary treatments. Dietary treatments during gilt development period included two levels of dietary nutrients (Adeq: optimal growing diet that exceed NRC 2012 recommendation or Low: moderate slow growing diet that SID lys and ME levels were gradually reduced by 0.03% and 0 kcal/kg, 0.15% and 146 kcal/kg, and 0.15% and 150 kcal/kg, respectively) and two sources of vitamin D [StD: 1653 IU cholecalciferol/kg or HyD: 500 IU cholecalciferol/kg + 50 mcg calcifediol (ROVIMIX HY.D DSM Nutritional Products North America)] during development phase 1 (23 to 57 kg), 2 (57 to 91 kg), and 3 (91 until breeding). Dietary nutrient level treatment was withdrawn during gestation and lactation stages, while sows remained on their vitamin D treatments. Progeny were fed with a 6-phase feeding regimen as nursery phase 3 (14 d) and 4 (14 d), grower phase 1 (28 d) and 2 (28 d), and finisher phase 1 (28 d) and 2 (28 d). All pigs were transferred to a commercial processing plant where carcass characteristics were measured. Data were analyzed using Mixed procedure of SAS (Cary, NC) with maternal diet nutrient level, vitamin D source and the interaction as fixed effects. Progeny born from sows fed HyD diets had greater ADG in overall grower/finisher phases (P = 0.04) and during the whole trial (P = 0.03). This weight gain improvement increased the final BW, HCW, and yield percentage over StD derived progeny by 3.19 kg, 3.56 kg and 0.11% (P = 0.04, 0.02 and < 0.01), respectively. Dietary nutrient level had limited effect on progeny ADG and BW during the preslaughter period. The maternal vitamin D source did not affect progeny ADFI but overall G:F tended (P = 0.06) to be greater in pigs sourced from dams fed HyD . A maternal vitamin D by nutrient level interaction was observed for ADFI during grower/finisher phases (P = 0.05) and overall (P = 0.07) because progeny from gilts fed a low nutrient level had greater intake than cohorts from gilts fed an adequate nutrient diet, while ADFI was similar for all offspring