Supplementing maternal sows’ diet with 25-hydroxyvitamin D3 increased milk profile and the health status of their young ones

A total of 10 sows (average body weight of 185.5 kg, Landrace Yorkshire) and their progenies were utilized in this experiment.At first, sows were randomly allotted to 1 of 2 dietary treatments with 5 replicates of 1 sow and its litter per pen following a randomized complete block design.The test treatments were: Control (CON) basal diet and a basal diet supplemented with 0.036% of 25-hydroxyvitamin D 3 (25(OH)D 3 ).Sows fed diet supplemented with 25(OH)D 3 had no adverse effect on their reproduction performance such as body weight, average daily feed intake, body weight loss, and body weight loss difference during before farrowing, after farrowing, and at weaning.Piglets born from sows fed dietary 25(OH)D 3 showed significantly increased (p < 0.05) weaning weight and average daily gain.Sows fed diet supplemented with 25(OH)D 3 had high total solid (TS) colostrum concentration at week 1, however at the end of week 3 the TS level had decreased approximately 2%.We believe that the positive findings of the present study could establish a major constituent for the swine mammary secretions and provide a reliable groundwork for future experiments in animal husbandry.