Investigations on ileal microbial flora in weaning piglets

Abstract

To characterize ileal microbial flora in weaning piglets a slaughter trial was conducted. 224 German Landrace piglets of both genders were allocated to four different feeding regimes (with or without avilamycin, 3 resp. 8 % crude fibre content). At predefined times pre- and postweaning piglets were sacrificed, the whole intestinal tract was removed and its content collected separately for each section. The microbial community was examined applying classical plate counting (selective agar plates) and molecular techniques (DGGE, 16SrDNA-sequencing). Furthermore a range of microbial metabolites was determined. Changes in ileal microflora ¿ rather due to age than to diet - were observed pre- and postweaning