No abstract

Ethics approval and consent to participateThe experimental protocol was approved (CBNUA-1621-21-02) by the Institutional Animal Care and

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of supplementing different ratios of phytogenic feed additives (PFA) to weaned pigs challenged with pathogenic Escherichia coli (E. coli) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, intestinal barrier integrity, and immune response, and to determine the optimal mixing ratio for PWD prevention. A total of 48 4-week-old weaned pigs with initial body weight of 8.01 ± 0.39 kg were placed in individual metabolic cages, and then randomly assigned to eight treatment groups. The eight treatments were as follows: a basal diet without E. coli challenge (negative control, NC), a basal diet with E. coli challenge (positive control, PC), PC with supplementing 0.1% mixture of 20 % bitter citrus extract (BCE), 10% microencapsulated blend of thymol and carvacrol (MEO), and 70% excipient (T1), PC with supplementing 0.1% mixture of 10% MEO, 20% premixture of grape seed & grape marc extract, green tea, and hops (PGE), and 60% excipient (T2), PC with supplementing 0.1% mixture of 10% BCE, 10% MEO, 10% PGE, and 70% excipient (T3), PC with supplementing 0.1% mixture of 20% BCE, 20% MEO, and 60% excipient (T4), PC with supplementing 0.1 % mixture of 20% MEO, 20% PGE, and 60% excipient (T5), and PC with supplementing 0.1 % mixture of 10% BCE, 20% MEO, 10% PGE, and 60% excipient (T6). The experiments progressed in 16 days, including 5 days before and 11 days after the first E. coli challenge (d 0). In the E. coli challenge treatments, all pigs were orally inoculated by dividing a total of 10 mL of E. coli F 18 for 3 consecutive days from d 0 post-inoculation (PI). Compared with the PC group, the PFA2 and PFA6 groups significantly increased (P < 0.05) feed efficiency and decreased (P < 0.05) diarrhea during the entire period. At d 11 PI, the PFA6 group significantly improved (P < 0.05) gross energy digestibility compared to the PFA1 group. The PFA6 group significantly decreased (P < 0.05) tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α) and interleukin-6 (IL-6) in serum and increased (P < 0.05) the villus height to crypt depth ratio (VH:CD). The PFA2 significantly decreased (P < 0.05) the relative protein expression of calprotectin in the ileum. In conclusion, improvements in growth performance, diarrhea reduction, and immunity enhancement are demonstrated when 10% BCE, 20% MEO, 10% PGE, and 60% excipient are mixed.

In order to make piglet diets more effective, it is necessary to investigate effective methods for breaking down xylan in cereal. The objective of this study was to determine the effects of dietary stimbiotic (STB) supplementation on growth performance, intestinal morphology, immune response and intestinal microbiota in weaned piglets. A total of 24 (Duroc × Yorkshire × Landrace) weaned pigs (initial body weight of 8.01 ± 0.38 kg and 28 ± 3 d old), were assigned to 4 treatments with 6 replicates per treatment. Pigs were housed in individual pens for 17 days, including 5 days adaption period and 12 days after the first Escherichia coli (E. coli) challenge. The experiment was conducted in a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments consisting of two levels of challenge (challenge and non-challenge) and two levels of STB (0 and 0.5 g/kg diet). Supplementations of STB 0.5 g/kg improved the gain to feed ratio (G:F) (P < 0.05) in piglets challenged with shiga toxigenic E. coli (STEC). STB supplementation decreased (P < 0.05) white blood cells, neutrophils, lymphocytes, and expression levels of tumor necrosis factor-alpha and interleukin-6. Supplementation of STB improved (P < 0.05) the lymphocytes and neutrophils in piglets challenged with STEC on 12 dpi. Supplementation of STB also improved (P < 0.05) the villus height to-crypt depth ratio of ileum in piglets challenged with STEC. Supplementation of STB increased (P < 0.05) the expression levels of claudin-1 of ileum. In genus level, supplementation of STB increased (P < 0.001) the abundance of Prevotella compared to non-supplementation of STB groups in pre-inoculation period. Also, supplementation of STB decreased (P < 0.05) the abundance of Faecalibacterium and Eubacterium_coprostanoligenes_group compared to non-supplementation of STB groups in post-inoculation period. In phylum level, supplementation of STB increased (P < 0.05) the abundance of Desulfobacterota and Fibrobacterota in pre-inoculation period. E. coli challenge increased the abundance of Fibrobacterota compared to non-challenged group in post-inoculation period. In conclusion, these findings indicated that STB supplementation could alleviate a decrease of the performance, immune response, and inflammatory response in piglets induced by the STEC challenge.

Animal welfare during transport became an largely issue because of increasing demand for improved animal welfare standards. Most studies on the animal welfare during transportation have concentrated on the atmosphere and the temperature of the truck compartments. Thus, the objective of study was to collect and quantify three axis acceleration and determine the effect of bedding for transporting pigs from farm to slaughterhouse. A total of 2,840 crossbred fattening pigs with a live weight of approximately 115 kg were used. They were raised in the same commercial farms and transported to the same commercial slaughterhouse. A 3×2×2 completely randomized factorial design was used to investigate effects of rubber type bedding (bedding or non-bedding) and two levels of driving style (aggressive or normal) in three different time periods with different outside temperatures. Air temperature treatments were as follow: high temperature ([HT] higher than 24°C); low temperature ([LT] lower than 10°C); normal temperature ([NT] 10°C to 24°C). In our experiment, pigs transported under aggressive driving style showed lower ( p < 0.05) pH and water holding capacity (WHC) than those transported under normal driving style. Pigs transported under normal driving style showed a lower percentage of drip loss (DL) ( p < 0.05) than those transported with an aggressive driving style. Also, transported with bedding showed higher ( p < 0.05) lying behavior but lower ( p < 0.05) sitting behavior than those transported without bedding. Pigs transported under normal driving style showed lower ( p < 0.05) cortisol level than those transported under aggressive driving style. In conclusion, aggressive driving style cause acute stress in pigs, while bedding helps alleviate acute stress in pigs during transportation in LT.