An Investigation of Fatty Acids, Crude Protein and Total Solids in Colostrum in Relation to Health Status Regarding Postpartum Dysgalactia Syndrome and Certain Parity Groups of Sows.

Authors

Stephan Rosengart, Florian Lohkamp, Bussarakam Chuppava, Hubert Henne, Anne Kathrin Appel, Lea-Sophie Trost, Jens Tetens, Imke Traulsen, Ansgar Deermann, Michael Wendt, Christian Visscher

Published in

Journal of animal physiology and animal nutrition. Aug 06, 2026. Epub Aug 06, 2026.

Abstract

Colostrum is the main source of nutrients and proteins for newborn piglets. To give each piglet the best possible start in life, it is necessary to evaluate the colostrum according to quality. This has to be done by analysing the components, as component composition is a main quality parameter. To achieve this aim, in this study, the content of total solids, crude protein and 24 fatty acids in colostrum samples was analysed. The colostrum samples from 334 sows were classified according to the parity of the donor sow. Parity group 1 contained parity 1 and 2 sows (n = 93), parity group 2 contained parity 3 and 4 sows (n = 109), parity group 3 contained parity 5 and 6 sows (n = 61) and parity group 4 contained sows in parity 7 and higher (n = 71). In addition, 187 sows were investigated clinically within 2 days after farrowing and divided into three groups according to their health status with regard to postpartum dysgalactia syndrome (PDS) (healthy [n = 83], clinically suspicious [n = 74] and diseased sows [n = 30]). In this way, it was tested whether puerperal diseases affected the content of fatty acids, crude protein and total solids. Only a few of the colostrum constituents were directly linked to the health of the sows regarding PDS after farrowing. When comparing the contents of the different fatty acids in % of total fatty acids, the content of C18:0 in the colostrum of clinically suspicious sows was higher than in the colostrum of sows without PDS. The colostrum of sows without PDS had a higher content of C18:2n6c and C18:3n3 than the colostrum of clinically suspicious sows. Furthermore, the colostrum of PDS-diseased sows had a higher proportion of C20:2 than that of clinically suspicious sows. With regard to C24:1, the colostrum of sows without PDS had a higher proportion than that of PDS-diseased sows. In contrast, the parity group of the sows affected the quantity of 15 of the 24 analysed fatty acids. With regard to the proportion of the colostrum constituents in the whole colostrum, the colostrum of younger sows up to the 4th parity compared to older sows often had higher proportions of fatty acids (16 out of 24 parameters with significant differences), especially n-3 (C20:5n3, C22:6n3, C18:3n3) compared with n-6 (C18:2n6c, C18:3n6, C20:3n6, C20:4n6) and n3:n6 ratio (parity group 1: 14.6; parity group 2: 15.1; parity group 3: 15.4 and parity group 4: 15.5). No differences in total solids or crude protein were observed between the health groups regarding PDS or among the parity groups. In summary, there was rarely any link between health status regarding PDS and colostrum constituents, as opposed to a more consistent link between parity groups and colostrum constituents.

PMID:
42561122
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 07 Aug 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.