Supplemental impact of silymarin in growing pig diet on the growth performance, total tract digestibility, faecal microflora, faecal noxious gas emission and absorption rate in blood.

Abstract

The research was done to examine the impact of dietary silymarin on growth performance, total tract digestibility, faecal microbial, faecal gas emissionand absorption rate in blood of growing pigs. Experiment 1: a total of 140 growing pigs (24.47 ± 2.49 kg) were used in a 6-week trial. There were four dietary treatment groups (sevenreplicate pens/treatment, five pigs/pen) and treatment diets composed of corn, soybean meal (SBM), distillers dried grains with solubles (DDGS), and rapeseed meal-based basal diets with 0%, 0.025%, 0.050%and 0.10% of micelle silymarinrespectively. Experiment 2: A total of 18 pigs were divided into six treatment groups. Treatment diets: TRT1, TRT2 and TRT3 were basal diets with 30, 150and 300 g powdered silymarinrespectively; and TRT4, TRT5 and TRT6 were basal diets with 30, 150and 300 g micelle-type silymarinrespectively. Average daily gain (ADG) tended to increase (p < 0.10) at Week 3 and overall experiment after silymarin addition. Overall ADG and average daily feed intake are also intended to improve (p < 0.10) linearly in this study. During Week 6, growing pigs fed silymarin showed linearly increased (p < 0.05) apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of dry matter, nitrogenand energy. Dietary silymarin supplementation increased (p < 0.10) linearly the faecal Lactobacillus count at Week 3 while Escherichia coli count was linearly decreased at both the 3rdweek (p < 0.05) and 6thweek (p < 0.10). Silymarin supplementation showed no effect on faecal gas emissions. A higher (p < 0.05) absorption rate in the blood was found in micelle-type silymarin compared to powdered silymarin after the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 8th, 12thand 24th h of feeding. Results suggest that silymarin in a corn-SBM-DDGS-rapeseed meal-based diet may help to improve ADG, FI, ATTDand faecal microflora in growing pigs. And absorption rate in the blood of pig is higher in micelle-type silymarin.