Milk does everything at first — then it stops being enough
For the first days the sow does the whole job, and your feeding work is feeding her well and watching that every piglet gets its teat time. Things change from around a week old: piglets start nosing the ground, mouthing straw and investigating anything edible. That curiosity is the opening for creep feed. It matters because a growing litter's demand keeps climbing while the sow's milk levels off, so piglets that have learned to eat solid food glide over that gap and piglets that have not hit it head-on at weaning.
Creep feeding: early, shallow and little and often
Put a small amount of piglet starter feed in a shallow, heavy pan inside a creep corner the piglets can reach and the sow cannot. Start with a handful — freshness matters more than volume, because stale, fouled creep teaches piglets to ignore the pan. Top up little and often through the day and clear away what is left rather than piling new on old. Keep clean water where piglets can reach it too; piglets that can drink eat more creep, and the two habits build together. Expect the first week of creep to look pointless — a few mouthfuls a day — while the real eating arrives in the following weeks.
Let the litter's appetite set the pace
Increase the creep as fast as the litter clears it, not by a chart. A litter that empties the pan between top-ups is ready for more; creep sitting stale means you offered too much. Watch the spread of the litter as much as the total: the bold piglets will monopolise the pan, so use a long trough or two pans so the smaller ones feed alongside instead of waiting. The runts of a pig litter are made at the feed pan more often than anywhere else, and a second pan is cheaper than a setback.
Weaning day: change one thing, not everything
Wean when every piglet — not just the big ones — is eating solid feed keenly and drinking, because the smallest piglet is your true readiness test. On the day itself, keep everything else familiar: the same creep feed, the same pen if you can manage it, the same water. The piglets lose their mother; they should not simultaneously lose their feed, their pen and their routine. After weaning, keep meals small and frequent for the first days, since newly weaned piglets tend to gorge then go off their feed, and a steady trickle suits their digestion better than two feasts.
Watch-outs in the first week after weaning
A degree of noise and restlessness is normal, but learn the picture that is not: piglets that stop eating altogether, scour that persists beyond a day or two, a piglet that stands hunched and separate, or any piglet losing condition while its siblings hold. Those are your cues to call the vet rather than wait it out, especially if several piglets are affected at once. Note which piglet and when, so you can describe the course of it clearly.
Keep the routine going when hands change
A litter eats to a rhythm — creep topped up, water checked, pans cleaned, the smallest watched — and that rhythm breaks easily when different people cover different days. Setting those jobs out in KinsLe's Care Teams, with each completed task marked off, means the litter gets the same feeding day whoever walks into the yard, and nothing depends on one person's memory.