Effects of different feeding methods on immune regulation of intestinal flora in piglets during lactation

In most commercial pig farms, piglets have a short lactation time. Some studies have pointed out that some piglets are fed with trough feed for a short time before weaning or do not feed trough feed, resulting in little chance of piglets contacting feed; In addition, the traditional feeding method of sows is to use an opaque trough with a certain height from the ground. The trough is placed at the edge of the fence. Piglets have little chance to observe the feeding of sows, or even learn the feeding behavior by feeding with sows. As a result, most piglets are not familiar with the food provided, they are not suitable for solid feed when weaning, have greater weaning stress and lower feed intake of teaching trough material.Studies have shown that piglets can eat more unfamiliar food within 7 minutes when accompanied by sows, which shows that the fear of strange feed can be eliminated to a certain extent when accompanied by sows; It was found that the observation or participation of piglets in the feeding of sows could improve the feed intake of piglets and shorten the feeding delay. This means that feeding sows and piglets together can make piglets learn the feeding behavior of sows to the greatest extent, improve piglets' cognition of solid feed and increase their acceptance of feed.In this study, piglets were enrolled to determine whether the feeding mode of piglets visually learning the feeding behavior of sows during lactation could improve the degree of piglet perception of solid feed, improve piglet growth performance, promote intestinal development, reduce diarrhea rate, and elucidate the mechanisms by which the intestinal flora participates in regulating intestinal immunity.