Abstract
Zinc has been very efficacious in reducing post-weaning diarrhea, whereas animal-derived peptides are suggested to improve the growth performance of weaned piglets. However, the combined effect of zinc and peptides on swine production and swine gut microbiota is still largely unknown. In this study, we followed 288 nursery pigs from the age of d30 to d60 to evaluate the growth performance and gut microbiota of weanling pigs subjected to different levels of a fish-porcine-microbial peptide cocktail (0.05%, 0.25%, and 0.5%) with or without the pharmaceutical level of zinc oxide (ZnO) (2500 ppm) supplementation in a nutrient-deficient diet. Rectal swab samples were collected from pigs with body weight (BW) approach average at each pen on d30, d42, and d60 to determine gut microbiota. Average daily gain (ADG) and BW in piglets fed high zinc (HZ) increased with increasing levels of peptide. The microbiota of the HZ group also diverged from those of the standard zinc (SZ) group from d30 to d60. Adding peptide did not alter community structure regardless of zinc supplementation. Collectively, these findings demonstrated that the pharmaceutical level of zinc as ZnO conditioned the gut community to the point where peptide could effectively restore growth performance in nursery pigs fed nutrient-deficient diets.
Highlights
Weaning is one of the most stressful events in a pig’s life due to drastic environmental and nutritional changes
Body weight (BW, Figure 1A) and average daily gain (ADG, Figure 1B) in nursery phase 2 increased linearly with increasing levels of the peptide in the high-zinc group, whereas little response was observed in pigs fed 0.25% and 0.5% peptide in standard zinc diets (Zinc*linear peptide p = 0.013 and p = 0.018, respectively)
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Summary
Weaning is one of the most stressful events in a pig’s life due to drastic environmental and nutritional changes. Weaning stress could induce dysfunction of the intestinal barrier, which is characterized by increased intestinal permeability [3,4]. This intestinal dysintegrity allows pathogens, antigens, and endotoxins to “leak” into the body, resulting in systemic inflammation and disease [5,6,7]. Weaning can disturb the ecological balance of the gut microbial community which contributes to the animal’s health through a variety of mechanisms such as the activation of immune response, competition with pathogens for nutrients, bacteriocin production, and acid environmental maintenance, etc. Because weaning negatively affects piglet growth and overall health, it becomes necessary to stimulate the indigenous gastrointestinal microflora and maintain their balance because of the protection they offer against the invasion of pathogenic bacteria [10]
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