Production, Management and the Environment: Health and Miscellaneous

2) sows receiving 1 g/kg of MOS during lactation, and dietary treatment: 1) basal diet (control), and 2) basal diet with MOS at 2 g/kg in prestarter and 1 g/kg in starter diets. The experimental design was applied in both the prestarter (28 to 44 d of age) and the starter (44 to 60 d of age) periods. Nutritive value of the diets was 2.5 Mcal NE/kg and 14.8 g/kg lysine for prestarter, and 2.5 Mcal NE/kg and 13.3 g/kg lysine for starter, and were based on barley, corn, and wheat. Data were analyzed as a completely randomized block design with piglet origin and dietary treatment as main effects and weaning weight as a covariate. For the overall period (28 to 60 d of age), piglets coming from sows eating MOS during their lactation period grew more than piglets from control sows independently from their dietary treatment after weaning (339 vs 363 g/d; P<0.05). On the other hand, piglets supplemented with MOS tended to have better feed conversion ratio than control piglets independently from their origin (1.50 vs 1.39 g feed/g gain; P=0.059). No interactions were detected between main effects for any of the parameters studied. It was concluded that: i) the supplementation of lactation diets with MOS improved growth of piglets during the post-weaning period with independence of dietary treatment within this period, and ii) addition of MOS to post-weaning piglet diets improved feed efficiency.