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The amount and composition of milk that a sow produces has a significant impact on the growth, health and development of her offspring. The optimal growth of suckling piglets directly depends on the volume and total solid content of the mother’s milk. Folic acid is a B-complex vitamin which is involved in several biological reactions in mammals. In woman, the folic acid supplementation is known to improve their health status and be effective in the prevention of neural tube defects. Furthermore, supplementation of dairy cows increases milk yields and milk quality, and the concentrations of serum and milk. The present research was conducted to investigate the influences of supplementation with different levels of folic acids in diet on the performance of lactating sows. Twenty Landrace x Yorkshire sows received the same basal corn–soybean diets (folic acid, 1.3 mg/kg) from gestation to parturition (from days 30 to 107). After parturition, sows were allotted to four treatments according to the sow’s parity and the piglet’s body weight, and fed the same basal diet with folic acid added at different levels: control group (folic acid supplementation level, 0 mg/kg), group 1 (12.5 mg/kg), group 2 (50 mg/kg) and group 3 (100 mg/kg), with five replicates of one sow. The experiment lasted for 21 days. Blood samples were collected from the marginal vein of each sow at days 0, 7, 21 after parturition for biochemical analysis.
The supplementation with folic acid in the sow diet had no effect on total average milk production of sow, which regression analysis indicated a quadratic relationship (R2 = 0.949, P = 0.226). When the levels of added folic acid were increased from 0 to 100 mg/kg, the ratio of feed intake to milk production decreased from 0.70 to 0.65 (R2 = 0.918, P = 0.042). Compared with the control, supplementation with folic acid (100 mg/kg) increased the concentration of butter fat, total substance and non-lipoid substance significantly (P < 0.01), the concentration of milk protein was also significantly increased in group 1 and group 2 (P < 0.01) in milk. Folic acid supplementation increased litter weaning weight, average piglet weaning weight and average piglet daily gain (P > 0.05). More precisely, the second week of lactation, piglets from sows supplemented with the higher dose of folic acid showed an increase in the ADG (P < 0.05).
These results suggested that supplementation with folic acid from 12.5 to 100 mg/kg in the diets of lactating sows increases milk production, improved milk quality and the performance of piglets.
W Sheng-Ping, Y Yu-Long, Q Yin, Li Li-Li, L Feng-Na, T Bi-E, T Xiang-Shan, and H Rui-Lin. Effects of folic acid on the performance of suckling piglets and sows during lactation. 2011. Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture. 91:2371-2377.