Table 5.

The effect of dietary ME level on litter size (Exp. 1)

			ME level, Mcal/kg								P-value
Item	Parity	No.	3.06	3.16	3.20	3.25	3.30	3.40	Mean13	SEM	Treat	Linear	Quadratic
No. piglets suckling	1	36	10.80	10.25	10.60	10.40	10.40	10.40	10.49	0.32	0.89	--	--
	2	36	10.00	10.40	11.00	11.17	10.83	11.00	10.77	0.34	0.16	--	--
	3+	113	10.89	11.26	10.67	10.90	10.95	10.83	10.92	0.25	0.69	--	--
	Overall2	185	10.73	10.97	10.73	10.88	10.84	10.81	10.83	0.18	0.94	--	--
No. piglets weaned1	1	36	9.32	9.94	9.86	9.67	8.88	9.52	9.52	0.40	0.10	0.29	0.76
	2	36	9.33ac	10.65b	9.17a	9.88c	9.62ac	9.84c	9.73	0.36	< 0.01	0.09	0.19
	3+	113	9.61	9.28	9.91	9.77	9.89	9.46	9.65	0.24	0.24	0.85	0.33
	Overall2	185	9.52	9.58	9.75	9.76	9.67	9.56	9.64	0.18	0.83	0.67	0.16
Mortality, %1	1	36	10.97	5.21	5.75	7.70	15.45	9.30	9.22	2.75	0.10	0.48	0.33
	2	36	13.22ac	0.65b	14.19a	8.27c	10.77ac	8.71ac	9.46	2.64	< 0.01	0.82	0.83
	3+	113	11.14	14.46	8.95	10.58	9.24	12.97	11.22	2.09	0.28	0.70	0.53
	Overall2	185	11.44	10.90	9.57	9.81	10.56	11.34	9.52	1.51	0.91	0.93	0.34

¹Number of piglets suckling and lactation length were used as a covariate in the analysis

²Parity effect was included in the model

³Parity effect and treatment effect was included in the model

^{a, b, c}Within a row, values with no common superscript differ significantly (P < 0.05).