Influence of lactoferrin on metal element contents in serum and excrement and antioxidant capacity of early weaned piglets

Abstract

The experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of supplemental lactoferrin(LF) in basal diet on growth performance,metal element contents in serum and excrement and antioxidant capacity of the weaning piglets.Ninety-six 21-day-old weaning piglets were randomly allocated into 4 treatments with 4 replicates in each treatment,and 6 piglets per replicate.Each treatment was fed with basal diet supplemented with 0,250,500 and 750 mg/kg LF respectively for 21 d.The result showed: basal diets supplemented with LF could significantly improve the daily gain and reduce the diarrhea rate(P0.05)and the treatment fed with diet supplemented with 750 mg/kg LF yielded the best feed/gain ratio;the content of Fe in serum could be significantly increased by LF(P0.05);the content of Fe in the excrement of the treatments fed with diet supplemented with 500 mg/kg and 750 mg/kg LF could be significantly reduced,and the content of metal Cu,Zn and Mn in other treatments tended to reduce in the excrement(P0.05).The supplementation of 500 mg/kg LF could significantly decrease the content of MDA in serum(P0.05)and increase the SOD and the GSH-Px activity(P0.05).The results indicated that supplementation of LF could improve growth performance,increase the contents of trace elements in serum,reduce the contents of metal in excrement and improve the antioxidant capacity of the organism.The appropriate supplemental amount of LF was 500 mg/kg under this experimental condition.