Table 3.

Initial parameters and sow plasma metabolites 3 d before parturition of sows fed a gestation diet, a transition diet, or a lactation diet from 6 d before parturition (experiment 2)

Item	Treatment						Parity				P-value
	Gestation	Transition	Lactation	SEM	Primi	Multi	SEM	Trt1	Parity
Sows
No. of sows	36	34	18		14	81
Mean parity	2.6	2.5	2.4		1	2.8
Initial BW day 111, kg	261	261	252	4.20	217	267	4.97	0.19	<0.001
Initial back fat day 111, mm	14.2	13.3	13.9	0.63	14.2	13.7	0.78	0.40	0.55
Feed intake, kg/d	3.05	2.96	2.99	0.04	2.99	3.00	0.05	0.07	0.84
Sow plasma metabolites
Insulin, pmol/L	8.50	8.32	8.93	0.97	13.8	7.53	1.23	0.88	<0.001
Glucose, mM	5.13	4.97	5.16	0.13	5.45	5.00	0.16	0.37	0.01
Lactate, mM	1.78	1.91	1.98	0.20	2.29	1.79	0.24	0.68	0.07
NEFA, µekv/L2	32.3	74.2	55.0		28.4	55.4		0.06	0.15
NEFA CI	[20.1; 51.9]	[46.0; 120]	[28.4; 107]		[12.7; 63.9]	[40.0; 76.9]
TAG, mM3	0.44	0.42	0.49	0.05	0.64	0.41	0.06	0.53	<0.001
Urea, mM	3.65b	3.88b	4.45a	0.12	3.81	3.92	0.15	<0.001	0.53

^a,bMeans with different superscript letters differ significantly (P < 0.05).

¹Treatment.

²Nonesterified fatty acid is log-transformed before statistical analysis, and hence confidence limits are given in brackets instead of SEM values.

³Triglycerides.