Betriebseigenes versus zugekauftes Futter für Öko-Ferkel: Unterschiedliche Fütterungsstrategien und ihre Auswirkungen

Summary

Based on organic agriculture´s aim to produce as regionally and self-sufficient as possible, animal feeding should be mainly based on home-grown feedstuff. This poses
a special challenge in feeding of piglets, who require highly digestible diets and highquality protein. Therefore, a feeding trial was conducted to compare various singlephase, 100% organic feeding strategies for piglets before and after weaning, differing in the proportion of home-grown feeds. Each strategy consisted of one out of three concentrates and one out of two roughages. The type of roughage did not affect animal performance, but the concentrate with the highest proportion of home-grown
feed and accordingly lowest quality led to significantly slower growth, while the concentrate conversion ratio was best for the highest quality feed. Despite these
differences, the time and amount of feed needed to raise a piglet of 20 kg did not differ between the treatments. Therefore, the concentrate with the highest proportion of
home-grown feed can be recommended, at least under equally favourable conditions including a prolonged suckling period of 49 days, single-phase feeding, and good animal care.