What is the impact of initial post-weaning feed intake on piglet metabolism?
Dutch research has found that feed intake during the initial days of post-weaning significantly impacts pig growth, immunity and metabolism. The study found that a sustained low intake, such as for up to 6 days, triggers a systemic inflammatory response.
The research, led by Lluis Faba from Trouw Nutrition Research and Development, at the Swine Research Centre, wanted to examine the cause and consequence of low feed intake in weaners and its link to intestinal disturbances and metabolic stress.
About the study
The study explored the associations between individual daily feed intake (FI) patterns, metabolic status and intestinal physiology. Female pigs (n=24) were selected based on high or low cumulative FI between day 1 and day 3 relative to weaning (day 0) from 12 pens equipped with electronic feeding stations at 1-weeks after weaning for dissection and sampling.
4 classes of pigs were created with pigs which started with a high or low FI (day 1 to day 3) and continued with a high or low FI (day 4 to day 6) (HH, HL, LH and LL respectively; n = 6) for data analysis.
Results
In plasma, HL pigs showed higher plasma glutamate dehydrogenase than LL pigs (P < 0.05). A low FI day 1 to day 3 increased plasma creatinine and lactate dehydrogenase, and reduced insulin-line growth factor (IGF-I), gastrointestinal organ weights and jejunal villus surface area at one week after weaning (P <0.05).
However, low FI day 4 to day 6 increased plasma haptoglobin, PigMAP, bile acids and bilirubin levels and reduced jejunal villus length (P<0.05).
In jejunum tissue, HH pigs had the highest jejunal upregulated IGF-I receptor and a reduced local inflammatory gene expression when compared to HL pigs and similarly when compared to all classes.
For the main effects, pigs classified as high F1 day 1 to day 3 had upregulated immune system, including IL6, TGFB1, TLR2 and TRL4 genes compared to low F1 day 1 to day 3 pigs (P<0.05). In a multivariate model, variance in ADG was mostly explained by positive correlations with FI day 1 to day 3, jejunal morphometrics and plasma IGF-I, while negatively explained by histamine in digesta, PigMAP, triglycerides and haptoglobin in plasma.
