Development of feed preference in young swine

In a review, the development of feed preferences in young rodents, the means of transmitting feeding habits from the adult and the limiting of predators by "taste aversion" is discussed. Milk may bear the flavour of the mother's diet and thus influence the preferences of the young. That effect was studied with 2100 baby pigs. There was transmission of feed preference only when the flavour concerned was present in the feed of both the sow and her young. Weight loss at weaning, usually ascribed to stress, could be reduced if the flavour of the feed was the same as that of the feed eaten previously by mother and piglets.