What the textbooks don’t tell you about…Creep feeding

IF you look up the indexes of those pig textbooks published over the past 15 years, you will find that the authors are in favour of the practice and are helpful in describing how to creep feed effectively.

All the more surprising therefore to find mixed opinions among pig farmers as to their value, seemingly based on their own experiences of trying to feed solid food to sucklers. This is particularly evident at some pig discussion groups and specialised training courses where I have sat at the back as an observer and listened to the opinions.

I find the same difference of opinion when remarking about creep feeding on several of the farms I visit. Those ‘against’ telling me: “We never found it worthwhile”, or: “Too much trouble for the effort involved”, or: “The feeds are too expensive!”. 

On the other hand the comments for those ‘for’ vary from: “I suppose it does some good” to: “Wouldn’t dream of not creep feeding.”

Read John Gadd's full article at Pig Progress on what has changed and why creep feeding is now "essential" rather than just "advisable" 

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