Weaning at 14 days in swine

On our farm (in the north of Thailand) we use to wean at 25 days and leave the piglets in the farrow cage until day 30. Because of problems, like diarrhea, we have changed. We now wean and move the piglets to the nursery at 20 days old. This has really helped with the diarrhea problem and will increase our piglet output (we sell piglets at 35 days old).

I personally think 14 days old is young to wean but there are occasional litters that could warrant that. These are small litters that are getting a lot of sows milk and because of that are large piglets. Other than that I do not feel the piglets are mature enough to wean at 14 days.

Thanks,
Randy

Personally, I do not think weaning to increase production is a good idea. As an emergency to stop diarrhea is okay if normal medications are not working. A baby needs the time with its mother in order to establish its mental and physical character prior to weaning. We are back to weaning at 25 days as this appears to be the healthiest time for the piglet.

And as Noni stated, why waste good milk! The number of "turns" per year gained by weaning earlier is not enough to offset the benefits of the maturing that goes on with a piglet with its mother.

Just my opionion,
Randall SurinFarm.com Thailand

Another comment - if you have a good and safe designed area for the piglet you should not have any deaths due to the sow laying on a piglet after the piglets are two days old.

If a sow is lazy and just drops down onto her litter she should be culled as she is costing your farm money.

a hot wire around the perimeter of the farrow hut prevents the sow from laying on the piglets or for that matter leaning on the wall. I dont have crates so this is the next best tool to prevent the sows fofrom laying on their piglets.

The other idea is to farrow them a little younger and let them have smaller litters. this teaches them how to mother their piglets and I use this method all the time to encourage the sows to be good mothers. i dont have too many accidents in the way of roll on.s.

Weaning at 14 days or earlier was used back in the 90's when trying to increased litters/sow/year and for disease control however is was rapidly noticed that the reproductive problems outweighted the benefits. This is because uterine involution requires 21 days so sows weaned early will take longer to come on heat and will also be prone to development of mastitis as Noni pointed after the second week sows produce more milk.
It is well documented now that the ealier age of weaning where you get the most benefit for both sows and piglets is 21 days.

You are trying to solve problems by bringing others. It is comprovated that weaning at least than 24 days is prejudicial to the number of piglets in the next litter. Finally, diarrhea is a matter of cleaning and desinfection. To get more piglets/litter you will have to work hard on each detail of reproduction, principally the nutritional one. Good work and results !!

In my experience in the 90’s we wean pigs 14 days during 2 years with a good results but very expensive. We did for health reason. We need to have special rations for the piglets. Productivity during those 2 years was 21 pigs per sow a year. This was a special circumstance.
My recommendation for weaning is that you must do an evaluation for the optimal production according with your facilities so you can wean at 21, 24 or 26+ days depending of your projected flow. For commercial production my recommendation is that no wean piglets less than 18 days.
Thanks
Pablo

There are several occasion of weaned at 14 days, however it could not work for all litter size. the biiger piglets could done at 14 days, but the smaller should be leave with the sow. In Minahasa North Sulawesi Indonesia we have done it ...

In Brazil the company Genetiporc has implemented an interesting technique, Partial Early Weaning (PEW), they withdraw from the 12 days the two more vigorous piglets in each litter and end partial weaning at 18 days, to apply this technique is necessary to use 4 face of feed, beginning with a phase 0 with a minimum of 25% lactose and have a weaning room temperature of 32 oc minimum.