Pre- and post-weaning nutritional and management strategies to increase piglet growth and reduce antimicrobial usage

Arnaud, Elisa A. (2024) Pre- and post-weaning nutritional and management strategies to increase piglet growth and reduce antimicrobial usage. Doctoral thesis, SETU Waterford.

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Abstract

The objectives of this thesis were to (1) investigate the application of split-suckling with/without postpartum provision of a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug to the sow on colostrum intake in suckling pigs and on lifetime growth, health, and medicinal usage in pigs; (2) determine the effect of providing a dry pelleted starter diet, a liquid milk replacer, and a liquid mixture of milk replacer and starter diet to suckling pigs, (3) assess the effect of 1% L-glutamine or enzyme supplementation of liquid creep feed and (4) determine the effect of post-weaning supplementary milk and/or dietary inclusion of 1% L-glutamine; on lifetime growth, health and medicinal usage in pigs. A single injection of meloxicam provided to sows post-partum reduced clinical cases of disease, tended to reduce medication usage in piglets and increased growth in pigs during the suckling and early post-weaning periods, and carcass weight at slaughter. This was most likely due to an increase in colostrum intake. No benefits were observed for split-suckling. Supplementing suckling piglets with liquid milk replacer or dry pelleted starter diet increased growth up to weaning but the benefit did not persist to slaughter. L-glutamine- or enzyme-supplemented liquid creep feed did not improve lifetime growth in pigs; in fact, L-glutamine tended to decrease weaning weight and to increase diarrhoea prevalence. As a post-weaning strategy, supplementing pigs with liquid milk replacer for 10 days post-weaning increased feed intake and improved small intestinal morphology, leading to increased slaughter weight. It also increased abundance of beneficial faecal bacteria and decreased expression of genes encoding pro-inflammatory cytokines. However, L-glutamine supplementation in liquid milk replacer post-weaning had no benefits. Furthermore, supplementing suckling or early-weaned pigs with a liquid diet with/without feed additives (L-glutamine or enzymes) did not influence medicinal usage.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Nutritional management strategies, antimicrobial usage
Departments or Groups:	*NONE OF THESE*
Divisions:	School of Science > Department of Computing, Maths and Physics
Depositing User:	Derek Langford
Date Deposited:	09 Oct 2024 14:22
Last Modified:	09 Oct 2024 14:22
URI:	https://repository.wit.ie/id/eprint/7833

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