Weaning is a important time for piglets, usually resulting in weight reduction, diarrhea, and elevated mortality resulting from elements like surroundings, feeding strategies, and weight loss program. Important oils are recognized for his or her antimicrobial and antioxidant results, which assist animal well being, however they’re shortly metabolized within the higher GI tract, limiting their effectiveness within the intestines. Microencapsulation presents a option to ship important oils successfully to the decrease gut. Nonetheless, restricted analysis exists on the results of microencapsulated important oils (MEO) on progress and intestine well being in weaned piglets. This examine investigates MEO’s influence on weight achieve, feed consumption, feed conversion ratio, diarrhea, intestine construction, and antioxidant exercise in weaned piglets, aiming to establish new feed components to enhance intestine well being.
Strategies: A complete of 120 weaned piglets (weaned at 30 days of age) had been divided into 4 teams, every receiving both a fundamental weight loss program (management) or the identical weight loss program with completely different doses of MEO (300, 500, or 700 mg/kg for the Low-MEO, Medium-MEO, and Excessive-MEO teams, respectively). The piglets, at 28 days of age, had been pre-fed for a period of three days, adopted by a proper testing interval of 14 days. On the finish of the experiment, one piglet from every pen was randomly chosen for sampling. The collected samples included blood, together with important organ tissues similar to the guts, liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, and lungs. Moreover, intestinal tissues and contents had been gathered for additional evaluation.
Outcomes: Including MEO improved common every day achieve and feed consumption within the piglets, which additionally skilled much less diarrhea than these on the management weight loss program. MEO supplementation additionally positively impacted the intestinal construction, rising the villus peak within the jejunum and the villus-to-crypt ratio within the duodenum, key indicators of intestine well being. Moreover, MEO improved the antioxidant capability within the jejunum and enhanced the range of helpful intestine micro organism. Apparently, solely the very best dose of MEO (Excessive-MEO) considerably elevated the degrees of isobutyric acid within the colon, whereas different acids remained unaffected.
Conclusion: Microencapsulated important oils seems to assist progress, cut back digestive points, and enhance intestine well being, making it a helpful complement for piglets transitioning via the weaning interval.
Chen Okay, Dai Z, Zhang Y, Wu S, Liu L, Wang Okay, Shen D, Li C. (2024). Results of Microencapsulated Important Oils on Progress and Intestinal Well being in Weaned Piglets. Animals (Basel). 18;14(18):2705.
doi: 10.3390/ani14182705
