How to raise a healthy piglet

Oct 21, 2024

Raising healthy piglets is critical for successful swine production. Piglets are particularly vulnerable in the early stages of life, requiring a balanced approach to nutrition, environment, disease prevention, and overall management. The basis for a healthy piglet starts already with a healthy sow. In order to give the piglet the best conditions for a successful start, it is important to support intestinal development as early as possible in a positive way.

1. The sow

To give the piglet the best conditions for a successful start, it is important to support intestinal development as early as possible in a positive way – preferably even before birth through the mother sow’s diet. Targeted nutrition and feeding management can have a positive effect on the quality and quantity of colostrum.

Maternal imprinting, which refers to the transfer of microbes from the sow to the neonate during birth, suckle, and early life, helps to establish the neonate’s gut microbiome and shape the development of the gut barrier. The piglet‘s immune system development and, in turn, their growth and survival are influenced by the sow‘s microbiota.

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Video: Food Inflation and Pork Demand - Dr. Sylvain Charlebois

In this episode of The Swine it Podcast Show Canada, Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, Professor and Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, discusses how food inflation is reshaping Canadian protein demand. He explains why pork remains competitively priced, consumer behavior, and why transparency, AI-assisted shopping, and protein demand will matter in the years ahead. Listen now on all major platforms!

"The potential of pork is there. We just need to see the product assume that role and take it away because all the elements are there."

Meet the guest: Dr. Sylvain Charlebois is a Professor in Dalhousie University's Faculty of Management and Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab. His research focuses on food distribution, food policy, food safety, food security, and traceability. Dr. Charlebois has written four books and more than 500 peer-reviewed and scientific articles. He holds a BComm from the Royal Military College, an MBA from UQAM, and a DBA from the University of Sherbrooke. Learn more from Dr. Sylvain Charlebois on The Swine it Podcast Show Canada, available on all major platforms.