Raising of pigs

#Baby pigs are born in particularly weak and defenseless condition. Their skin and hair are thin and fragile, compared to the young of other economic animals, and their reserves of stored nutrients are very low. In particular, the fat reserves of a piglet are very slight.

#Thus, piglets deplete their glycogen reserves very soon after birth. If an individual piglet is slow to suckle or gets less than its share of colostrum and milk, it will very soon be in desperate condition. The observed result is that only about 75% of piglets survive to adulthood.

#It has been found that the survival of piglets can be measurably improved by expedients which raise the fat content of sows' colostrum and milk. For example, Moser and Lewis reported in Feedstuffs, Mar. 3, 1980, that the addition of fats to the diet of lactating sows increased the fat content of their colostrum and milk, and resulted in an increase of about 2.6% in the survival of their piglets, compared to normally-fed controls.

#The experimental animals were crossbred sows, primarily of Yorkshire extraction, which had previously borne from 1 to 5 litters and which were about to farrow. The sows were kept in farrowing crates, in a concrete block building with concrete slats, and were fed a cornsoy diet containing 10% of beet pulp which provided 16% protein. Each farrowing crate had an individual feeder and automatic waterer, and heat lamps and radiant heat bars were available to warm the piglets as necessary.

#Three sows made up the untreated control group, and two sows each were placed in 6 treatment groups. The test compound was dl-1-(4-hydroxyphenyl)-2-[3-(4-hydroxy-phenyl)-1-methylpropylamino]ethanol , hydrochloride. The compound was administered orally to some sows, by pipetting an aqueous solution of the drug on each sow's feed at each of the morning and afternoon feedings. The compound, also as an aqueous solution, was injected subcutaneously in the rear flank area of those sows to which the administration was by injection. Injections were administered at 8 and 11:30 a.m. and at 3:30 p.m.

#The treatments were started at 8:00 a.m. the morning after each sow farrowed, and were continued for 3 days. Milk samples were obtained at the time of the morning and afternoon feedings by injecting oxytocin and milking the sows by hand. The milk samples were analyzed to determine fat content by infrared analysis.