Feeding Sows Lucerne, or Diets with Similar Energy and Nutritional Profiles to Lucerne, Improves the Pre-Weaning Performance of Piglets

Feeding fibre and branched-chain amino acids (BCAA) to sows during late gestation and lactation, respectively, have been shown to improve litter weights at weaning. Therefore, supplementing primiparous sow diets with lucerne chaff, a feedstuff high in fibre, BCAA and tryptophan, may improve the performance of their progeny. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of feeding primiparous sows (n = 118) either (i) a control diet (CON); (ii) CON with 1 kg of lucerne chaff (LUC); or (iii) a diet formulated to have a similar digestible energy and BCAA content as CON + LUC (SIMLUC 1) until farrowing. The LUC and SIMLUC 1 diets improved day 21 litter weight (p = 0.055). In Experiment 2 primiparous (n = 111) and multiparous sows (parities 2–5, n = 112) were fed either the CON or SIMLUC diet (SIMLUC 2) from day 110 of gestation to farrowing (PreF), or to day 10 post-farrowing (PreF + PostF). The SIMLUC 2 diet tended to be more beneficial to primiparous compared to multiparous sows when fed PreF, as indicated by an interaction between diet and parity on day 21 average piglet weights (p = 0.078). Overall, SIMLUC is most effective in improving primiparous progeny performance as evidenced by their D21 weights

Dietary supplementation with hydrolyzed yeast and its effect on the performance, intestinal microbiota, and immune response of weaned piglets.

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of autolyzed yeast on performance, cecal microbiota, and leukogram of weaned piglets. A total of 96 piglets of commercial line weaned at 21-day-old were used. The experimental design was a randomized block design with four treatments (diets containing 0.0%, 0.3%, 0.6%, and 0.9% autolyzed yeast), eight replicates, and three animals per pen in order to evaluate daily weight gain, daily feed intake, and feed conversion in periods of 0 to 15, 0 to 26, and 0 to 36 days. Quadratic effects of autolyzed yeast inclusion were observed on the feed conversion from 0 to 15 days, on daily weight gain from 0 to 15 days, 0 to 26 days and, 0 to 36 days, indicating an autolyzed yeast optimal inclusion level between 0.4% and 0.5%. No effect from autolyzed yeast addition was observed on piglet daily feed intake, cecal microbiota, and leukogram; however, i.m. application of E. coli lipopolysaccharide reduced the values of total leukocytes and their fractions (neutrophils, eosinophils, lymphocytes, monocytes, and rods). Therefore, autolyzed yeast when provided at levels between 0.4% and 0.5% improved weaned piglets’ performance.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Evaluation of Sugarcane-Derived Polyphenols on the Pre-Weaning and Post-Weaning Growth of Gilt Progeny

Gilt progeny (GP) exhibit poorer growth compared with sow progeny (SP), particularly in the pre-weaning and post-weaning period. Late gestation/lactation sow diets and weaner diets were supplemented with 0.5% Polygain (POL), a sugarcane extract rich in polyphenols, to collectively improve GP growth in these periods. Gilts (n = 60) and sows (n = 68, parities 2 and 3) were fed a control or POL diet. Weaned GP (n = 79) and SP (n = 92) born to these dams were also fed either a CON or POL diet. Gilts litters weighed less than sow litters at birth and 21 days (p < 0.001 for both) and were not improved by POL (p = 0.80 and 0.54, respectively). GP were lighter than SP at day 7 and day 14 post-weaning (p < 0.001 for both) and were not improved by the POL diet at these timepoints (p = 0.61 and 0.97, respectively). Plasma interleukin-1β (IL-1β) was increased at weaning despite POL supplementation (p = 0.022) and GP had reduced IL-1β overall (p = 0.021). Overall, POL was unable to improve growth in GP and the attenuated immune response seen in GP could be contributing to their poor growth performance