Performance of post-weaned piglets when offered choice of diet

Extract

There is evidence to suggest that individual pigs can differentiate and choose successfully between diets on the basis of their nutrient composition and change the proportion of the diet consumed to meet their changing nutritional requirements. Choice feeding may therefore provide an effective means of meeting the differing nutritional requirements of individual animals within a group and offers considerable productivity, dietary, managemental, welfare and environmental advantages. The present trial was therefore developed to establish the ability of young piglets to select their diet in the 5-week period following weaning and to examine the potential of choice feeding as a method of feeding piglets under commercial conditions.