Diets for piglets in the nursery phases and different ages at weaning

Eighty piglets, half weaned at 20 days of age and half weaned at 25 days of age, weighing 4.55 +/- 0.67 and 6.62 kg +/- 0.92 kg, respectively, were allotted to an experimental randomized block design in a factorial scheme, with five replicates of four animals per experimental unit, to evaluate two diets and two weaning periods and its effects in the growing and finishing phases. Different characteristics of diets were obtained with inclusion levels of ingredients: dried skin milk, sugar and soybean oil. There was no interaction between diets and weaning ages, but isolated effects of these factors on animal performance occurred. Piglets fed diet with high inclusion of dried skin milk and sugar and oil showed the best performance until 42 days, while the effect of the higher age was prominent only on weight gain. In the period from 42 to 63 days of age, the skin milk based diet allowed better feed/gain ratio and the effect of the oldest age persisted on weight gain. The animals fed diets with high levels of milk product (40 and 20%) in nursery phases reached the 94.1 kg at minor age and compared to the ones that received 10 and 0% of milk products in same phases, the reduction time was of 5 days at finishing. In the beginning of the growing phase, the high level of dried skim milk favored the piglets performance and the weaning at 25 days. It is more recommended that weaning at 20 days. The accumulate of the differences subsequently to the nursery applied treatments must be better evaluated in the final age of pig at slaughter weight.