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Gastrointestinal disturbances post weaning can cause heavy economic loss in the pig industry. The weaning transition is a complex period during which the piglets have to cope with abrupt separation from their mothers and have to adapt to a new environment and a new diet, which switches from highly-digestible (liquid) milk to a less digestible and more-complex solid feed. Various nutritional methods or solutions to minimize the weaning losses have been tested, some of which have been widely implemented in practice. Probiotics, which are a modulator to increase many active behaviours, plays an important role in gut-brain axis regulation. For that reason, this study was conducted to investigate the effects of a dietary probiotic blend and liquid feed program at different nutritional densities on growth performance, nutrient digestibility and faecal score of weaning piglets. For that purpose, a total of 120 weaning pigs were randomly allocated into 1 of 8 dietary treatments combining: apparent metabolic energy (AME)=3,500kcal/kg, crude protein (CP)= 20% vs AME=3,400kcal/kg, CP=19,42%; dry feed vs wet feed; probiotic levels of 0mg/kg vs 300mg/kg. Data from different parameters related to weight, feed intake and faecal aspects were collected from day 0 to 25.
As a result, greater average daily gain (ADG) and average daily feed intake (ADFI) were observed for the animals supplemented with probiotics. Gain:feed (G:F) ratio was improved when probiotics were supplemented in a wet feed diet with high nutrient content. Moreover, two interactions i) between nutrient levels and feed types, and ii) between nutrient levels and probiotics were observed in G:F ratio. Furthermore, a positive interaction on G:F was observed between the 3 main factors. Overall, higher ADG, ADFI, and G:F ratio was observed due to probiotic supplementation. Moreover, probiotic supplementation reduced the faecal score from d 0 to d 5.
These results indicated that probiotic supplementation improves growth performance and reduces the frequency of watery faeces. Besides, a wet feed program (feed:water = 1:1.25) could improve the G:F.
Zhang S, Yoo DH, Ao X, Kim IH. Effects of dietary probiotic, liquid feed and nutritional concentration on the growth performance, nutrient digestibility and fecal score of weaning piglets. Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences. 2020; 33(10): 1617. https://doi.org/10.5713/ajas.19.0473