Effects of feeding weaning pigs with a diet containing tributyrin and coated anise complexes on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, fecal noxious gas emission, fecal bacteria counts, fecal score, intestinal villus length, and serum hematology

Nutrients such as butyrate have been used as regulators to repair the damaged intestinal barrier, improve intestinal mucose integrity, and ameliorate intestinal microbiota disorder. Anise as a plant-derived substance has been reported to play an important role in attenuation of enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli-induced intestinal barrier disruption and intestinal inflammation. However, no study has investigated the effects of tributyrin and anise supplementation on performance of weaning pigs. We conducted this study to evaluate the effects of dietary supplementation of tributyrin and coated anise complexes (TCC) on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, fecal noxious gas emission, fecal bacteria counts, fecal score, intestinal villus length, and serum hematology in weaning pigs. A total of 150 21-d-old weaning pigs [(Landrace × Yorkshire) × Duroc] were randomly allotted to 3 treatments according to initial body weight (6.19 ± 0.29 kg) for a 42-d trial (phase 1, d 1–7; phase 2, d 8–21; phase 3, d 22–42). Each treatment had 10 replicate pens with 5 pigs (mixed sex) per pen. There were 3 diet conditions: (1) CON, corn-soybean-wheat basal diet; (2) TRT1, CON + 0.075% TCC; and (3) TRT2, CON + 0.15% TCC. We found that final body weight, average daily gain during d 8–21, 22–42, and 1–42, average daily feed intake during d 22–42 and 1–42, feed efficiency during d 1–42, apparent dry matter and nitrogen digestibility, apparent energy retention on d 7 and 42, and intestinal villus length increased linearly with the dose of TCC increased, whereas fecal amino emission on d 42 decreased linearly. Therefore, the TCC supplementation could increase villus length with subsequent improvement in nutrient digestibility, and further improving growth performance and reducing fecal noxious gas emission in weaning pigs.

Key Words: anise, tributyrin, fecal bacteria count, weaning pig.

Presented at the 9th Symposium on Gut Health in Production of Food Animals, St. Louis, USA, 2021. For information on the next edition, click here.