Abstract
ABSTRACTA total of 150 crossbred weaned pigs [(Yorkshire × Landrace) × Duroc] with an average body weight of 6.75 ± 0.49 kg were used in a 6-wk trial to determine the effects of dietary supplementation of β-glucan on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and characteristics of feces (fecal score, microbiota, moisture, and pH) in weaned pigs. The corn-soybean meal based dietary treatments included: 1) antibiotic (30 ppm Tiamulin), 2) 0% β-glucan, 3) 0.1% β-glucan, 4) 0.2% β-glucan, and 5) 0.4% β-glucan. Dietary supplementation with β-glucan resulted in no significant differences in growth performance, nutrient digestibility, or characteristics of feces compared with that of Tiamulin supplementation. Pigs fed β-glucan exhibited a linearly increasing average daily gain and feed/gain ratio. Dietary supplementation of β-glucan linearly increased apparent total tract digestibility of dry matter and energy during 1–14 and 1–42 d as dietary β-glucan increased from 0.1 to 0.4%. In addition, pigs fed β-glucan had linearly decreasing coliform bacterial counts. In conclusion, dietary supplementation with β-glucan from rice bran improved growth performance, nutrient digestibility and coliform bacteria in weaned pigs, and β-glucan had the same effect as Tiamulin supplementation on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and characteristics of feces. Thus, we suggest that β-glucan from rice bran can be used as an alternative to antibiotics, and will improve productivity of weaned pigs.
Highlights
Antibiotic supplementation in pig diets is well known to improve growth rate, feed utilization, and reduce mortality from clinical disease (Cromwell 2002)
Dietary supplementation with β-glucan resulted in no significant differences in growth performance, nutrient digestibility, or characteristics of feces compared with that of Tiamulin supplementation
Levels of average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI), and F/G did not differ between supplementation with β-glucan and Tiamulin
Summary
Antibiotic supplementation in pig diets is well known to improve growth rate, feed utilization, and reduce mortality from clinical disease (Cromwell 2002). Because the use of antibiotics results in a reservoir of drug-resistant bacteria, the use of antibiotics in livestock diets as a growth promoter has been banned in many countries. Β-glucan, a polysaccharide of D-glucose monomers linked by β-glycosidic bonds, is present in cellulose in plants, bran of cereal grains, cell walls of baker’s yeast, certain fungi, mushrooms, and bacteria. It is well known that β-glucan activates the immune system by binding to receptors on the surface of innate immune cells and maintains normal blood cholesterol concentrations (Braaten et al 1994; Brown and Gordon 2001; Vetvicka et al 2007). It has been reported that pig fed dietary βglucan exhibited increased plasma leucocytes counts, increased lymphocyte proliferation activity, decreased TNF-α concentration and fecal E. coli numbers, and benefited from the composition and metabolic activity of gastric microbiota, and caecal and colonic microbiota (Metzler-Zebeli et al 2011; Zhou et al 2013).
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