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Date: | Wed, 24 Mar 1999 10:10:03 -0500 |
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Do listers think the following might indicate anything about
human nursing and weaning patterns? (From New Scientist, 20
March 1999)
Love Liza
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[log in to unmask] (Liza May)
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"Suckling pigs acquire a taste for cordon bleu"
A FONDNESS FOR garlic could ease
livestock through the trauma of weaning, say
researchers in Britain.
Pig farmers often stop piglets from suckling
as
early as three weeks after they have been
born so that their mother can produce another
litter. But it can be up to a week before some
of the piglets learn to eat solid food. This
is
unacceptable on welfare grounds, argues Jon
Day of the ADAS Terrington Research Centre
near King's Lynn, Norfolk. "And it's also bad
for farm productivity."
Day believes piglets will switch more readily
to
solids if both milk and the feed have the same
strong flavour. He has already tested this
idea
with rats. Working with Emmeline Randall and
Richard Sibly of the University of Reading,
Day
added garlic or cumin to the food of pregnant
rats. Control females received normal food.
After allowing the pups to suckle for three
weeks, they were offered two pots of food,
one flavoured with cumin, the other with
garlic.
On the first day of weaning, 60 per cent of
the
food eaten by the rats fed on the
garlic-flavoured milk was from the garlicky
pot. The rats also spent 80 per cent of the
first day in physical contact with the
container
of garlic-flavoured food, suggesting that they
were strongly drawn to it. "The battle is to
get
them to stick their noses in the trough and
take
a bite," says Day, who will present his
results
next week in Scarborough at the annual
meeting of the British Society of Animal
Science.
Rats fed on cumin-flavoured milk ate equal
amounts of both foods on the first day, which
suggests that they were not as strongly
conditioned as the garlic-eaters. But they did
spend 60 per cent of their time on the first
day in contact with the cumin-flavoured pot.
Day is now seeking funding to test the garlic
treatment on piglets down on the farm.
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