Lallemand 5th International LEVUCELL® SB technical meeting: great values for sows and piglets!

The fifth edition of Lallemand Animal Nutrition’s S. cerevisiae boulardii technical meeting was brought back to Denmark, one of the world’s biggest pig producers.

Around 80 people, from all over Europe, Brazil and Asia gathered in Herning, in the Center of the Jutland region, between June 18 and 19th. This event was also the opportunity to meet with local pig producers and see LEVUCELL® SB fed sows and piglets as well as visiting Lallemand’s Danish yeast production plant.

The objectives of this 5th international meeting dedicated to Saccharomyces cerevisiae ssp. boulardii (LEVUCELL® SB), one of the most documented probiotics, were clearly laid out by Matthieu Baulez, Global Category Manager - Monogastric Feed Additives for Lallemand:

“Today, the probiotic concept in animal nutrition is increasingly accepted, the science is there, and we can say that LEVUCELL® SB is very well documented, for both its modes of action and zootechnical benefits. The goal of today’s meeting is to go from the science to practical, real life experience, in order to address real production issues, exchange ideas and experiences, but also explore new paths and open new windows in sows and piglets nutrition.”

The meeting featured renowned speakers from various and complementary backgrounds (academics, industry, vet, and pig farmer), for example: Dr Isabelle Oswald from INRA (France), Torben Jensen from Vestjyllands Andel (Denmark) or Pierre Lebreton from Tecnor-Sofac (France)...

The talks moved forward from sow to piglet performance and health challenges, addressing topics such as: sow feed efficiency, piglet vitality at birth and weaning performance, immunity & vaccination efficacy when facing a mycotoxin challenge, feed demedication and pathogen control, etc.

The last word was left to a local pig farmer who shared his own LEVUCELL® SB experience. His testimonial illustrated well the fact that, in the ever challenging world of pig production, this live yeast can be a valuable tool to help reduce the usage of medicines, while optimizing production performances.



FARM VISIT

TRANEMOSE (Viedebæk)
Tina and Per Bank Nielsen

• 450 sows
• 16.2 live born piglet/litter;
• 14.0 weaned /litter

The farm uses LEVUCELL® SB in both sow and piglet feeds. Sows are on liquid feed.

Per explains to the visitors:

“My wife is the one who looks after the sows in nursery. Twice I tried to stop the live yeast without telling her: the feed was exactly the same except for LEVUCELL® SB. Each time, after two weeks she asked me what I had hanged in the sows feed as their performance had dropped: piglet growth was decreased; she could tell the sows produced less milk. I had to go back on LEVUCELL® SB straight away and I am not stopping it again!”.

PIERRE LEBRETON, swine nutritionist at Tecnor-Sofac in France, kicked off the meeting with a presentation about feed efficiency in sows. This represents a crucial criteria for optimizing feed formulation at a time when feed represents up to 70% of production costs. If it is scientifically proven that LEVUCELL® SB enhances feed efficiency in sows by 2-3%, however this parameter remains difficult to measure at farm level.

Pierre Lebreton demonstrated how, by fine-tuning feed formulation to stick to the sows changing nutritional needs, and taking into account the LEVUCELL® SB effect on fibre digestibility, his feed company managed to design least cost formulation feeds.

He illustrated his lecture with some practical examples of gestating and lactating feed formulations where LEVUCELL® SB could participate to reduce feed cost (net energy and soluble fibres are reduced to account for LEVUCELL® SB positive effects on feed digestibility), without affecting performances: “We have been using some of these formulas for more than two years now and we have seen no change in sows body condition. Moreover, in lactation, producers have observed positive changes in sow’s behaviour such as less constipation; more sows laying down on their side... we are convinced to continue this type of formulation.”

He concluded that LEVUCELL® SB helps to save money, stabilises and homogenises feed valorisation and finally makes producer’s life easier !

Another proven effect of LEVUCELL® SB for sows is the improvement of farrowing quality and litter performance. It is now admitted that piglet’s birth weight is not sufficient to predict weaning performances and that vitality at birth is a very important criteria. Lallemand has looked into this topic for some years now, and back in 2008, a vitality scale was designed by the company and further validated by thousands of measures. Between 2009 and 2010, a large field survey was performed in five commercial farms in France and Canada, using this scale to evaluate the vitality of over 5200 piglets at birth, together with various parameters.

DAVID GUILLOU, Responsible for the Lallemand Monogastric R&D activities presented the conclusions of this unique meta-analysis, ranking the factors that seem to affect piglet vitality at birth:

1 “Birth order”: first born piglets show higher vitality scores.
2 “Birth weight”: light weight piglets show lower vitality.
3 “Farm effect”: important farm-to farm variations were detected, which are difficult to explain but could be attributed to numerous factors (genetic, feeding strategies, management…)
4 LEVUCELL® SB: this specific live yeast has a significant effect on vitality at birth, once the results are standardised with regard to previous factors!

Much research has been done on LEVUCELL® SB effects on sows and, in order to explain the possible reasons why LEVUCELL® SB could affect piglet vitality at birth and thus performances afterwards, David Guillou put all the pieces of the jigsaw together:

• Positive effect on the sows digestive transit, hence overall well being and comfort,
• Positive effect on farrowing duration,
• Positive effect on colostrum immune quality,
• Reduction of neonatal diarrhea...

Another key challenge in pig production today is the demedication of piglet feed.

TORBEN JENSEN, swine nutritionist for Vestjyllands Andel, in Denmark, presented examples of E. coli management in piglets with non-medicated feeds. Indeed, as Dr Helle Kjaersgard, a Danish swine veterinarian, reminded the audience, in Denmark, 40% of antibiotics used are prescribed for gut infection in piglets. The authorities’ willingness to reduce antibiotics in animal production puts growing pressure on pig production; and feeding programs using alternatives such as probiotics are a necessity.

For example, in his program, Torben Jensen uses probiotics (LEVUCELL® SB, as well as BACTOCELL®) and Zinc as alternatives to control contaminations.

ISABELLE OSWALD, from INRA, in France, focused her lecture on mycotoxins in pig feed, a very significant problem both in animal and human nutrition. According to her experience, pig is one of the most sensitive species to mycotoxins, while pig’s major diet components (cereals and corn in particular), are frequently contaminated with mycotoxins, even at low levels.

Mycotoxins are produced by fungus as non essential metabolites. They are very diverse in structure and properties and exert various deleterious effects on health and performance. The main mycotoxins affecting pigs have various toxic effects, targeting different organs. However, they all share common effects on the immune system. Isabelle Oswald focused on the later and presented her team’s main findings about two main modes of actions that can help explain how mycotoxins increase pig susceptibility to bacterial pathogens such as E. coli :

• At gut level, mycotoxins act on the digestive epithelial barrier and increase permeability to bacteria translocation from the gut to the blood flow.
• At systemic effect: mycotoxins affect the specific immune response, either cell-mediated or humoral, depending on the toxin.

Due to this deleterious effect on immunity, mycotoxins increase pathogen contamination risks and decrease vaccination efficacy. In order to evaluate LEVUCELL® SB positive effect on immunity, Isabelle Oswald conducted a preliminary study on piglets using this specific live yeast in a mycotoxin challenge model. This experiments howed that LEVUCELL® SB was able to help restoring the immune response and to enhance vaccination efficacy

Dr. HELLE KJAERSGARD gave a deeper insight into vaccination performance, which is for her a key issue to help reduce antibiotic usage. She showed that not all piglets are equal with regard to vaccination: when the immune system is weakened, vaccination is less efficient; productivity and pig health are at risk. Immunity can be weakened by several factors, such as mycotoxins, as discussed earlier, but also, by certain eating disorders, chronic diseases, other infections, or even stress. Dr Helle Kjaersgard advocates the use of economic tools to monitor piglets’ growth ad vaccination efficacy. According to her, based on the Danish experience, there is room for improvement, in particular through optimisation of weaning management, and a rational use of medicine and vaccines based on improved diagnostic.

In this context, based on all the data presented during the meeting, LEVUCELL®SB appears as a good tool to help achieve this goal.

In order to link back the science and theories to the field, the meeting was concluded by HENNING DEJGAARD, a Danish pig farmer who has been using LEVUCELL® SB in his farm for 18 months.

The 750 sows in the farm are fed liquid feed. One of the farm main problems was gilts diarrhea. The farm uses very low level of medicines and is keen to keep it this way. After several unsuccessful LEVUCELL®SB trials in the past, Henning Dejgaard wanted to try it again in January 2012, to tackle the gilts diarrheas problem. The farm feeding strategy was assessed with Lallemand. After a 4-6 months period of adaptation using LEVUCELL® SB in the sows feed, the farmer started to see the benefits of the new diet : “Diarrhea has reached an acceptable level. The” side-effect” of using LEVUCELL® SB is that the mortality rate among sows has dropped from 12.5% in 2011 to 9% in 2012, down to 8% in 2013: let’s hope it will continue! Moreover, our production is very stable now and the number of pigs sold has gone up.

The first five months of 2013 have given us a new record: 32.7 pigs per sow sold!”. This testimonial illustrates the fact that LEVUCELL® SB is a valuable tool to help reduce the usage of medicines in pig production, while optimising performances.