How to recognise
The pig is a very adaptable animal, able to thrive in a variety of ecological niches. To allow for feed selection, the pig is equipped with sophisticated sensory organs to detect potential nutritious feedstuffs in its surroundings. The young pig is initially reluctant to try new and unknown feeds (food neophobia), most likely because this evolutionary behaviour protects them from ingesting potential harmful ingredients by acquiring a pick-and-learn feed intake pattern. The most typical time for neophobia to occur is during the immediate post-weaning period, when piglets may fall back on their innate taste preferences or on learned association between certain tastes or flavours and safety of the feed. This makes variation in palatability risky and may lead to temporarily reduced feed intake, subsequently resulting in prolonged losses in performance, especially during the critical weaning period. Therefore, we recommend that taste and flavour changes between different feeding phases should be limited by driving feed formulation and/or feeding schemes.
