Compensatory growth in slaughter pigs reared under organic conditions

Summary

BACKGROUND: Compensatory growth is the physiological process leading to accelerated growth following a period of growth retardation. This study assessed different feeding strategies thatmay induce compensatory growth. Pigs from two sire breeds, reared under organic conditions, were subjected to: (1) ad libitum feeding; (2) 0.7× ad libitum feeding; (3) 0.7× ad libitum feeding for 25 days followedby adlibitum feeding toslaughter; and(4) as (3) butfinished with an energy- andvitamin E-enriched diet.
RESULTS: Compared to the performance of ad libitum fed pigs, re-alimentation was not capable of fully compensating the effect of the imposed feed restriction either in the number of days used to reach the same slaughter weight (+4% to 7%) or in the slaughter weight achieved in the same number of feeding days (−0.5% to 2.0%, P = 0.65 and 0.11).
CONCLUSION: It is reasonable to propose that although compensatory growth does occur by re-alimentation after feed
restriction, the compensation is far from always complete. The latter is a crucial aspect that has to be taken into account when considering the application of feeding strategies expected to lead to compensatory growth in organic pig production. The expectation of compensatory growth alone does not necessarily justify the application of these strategies.