“When you go over 14 live births and the sow has 12-14 functional teats, you need split-suckling protocols”

Sow herds should consider split-suckling (also called shift- suckling) if litters contain more than 14 liveborn pigs in order to improve survival rates, according to Drs. Rutger Jansen, technical service manager for swine at Boehringer Ingelheim in The Netherlands and a specialist on colostrum management. Lower mortality and more marketable pigs will pay for the 5-10 minutes of extra work time per litter involved in split- suckling. Dr. Jansen discusses details of the technique and also occasions when baby pigs may need training to drink from a teat or even bottle-feeding with colostrum milked from their mother or from another sow in the herd.