The Effects of Supplementing Low-Complexity Deoxynivalenol-Contaminated Nursery Diets with NutraMix™ or Fish Oil on Growth Performance and Immune Function

Published: February 13, 2023

By: É. Lafleur Larivière 1, C. Zhu 1, L. Huber 1 / 1 Department of Animal Biosciences, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON.

Summary

It is standard to feed newly weaned pigs high-complexity nursery diets to combat the growth lag induced by stressors of the weaning process. These nursery diets contain multiple sources of highly digestible animal-based proteins, making them the most expensive diets in the production cycle. Pigs can accelerate growth following a period of reduced growth caused by nutritional challenge (including the use of plant-based protein sources), which is known as compensatory growth. Feeding low complexity nursery diets containing increased inclusion of plant-based ingredients may be a means to decrease nursery feed costs, but with greater risk for mycotoxin contamination, which could inhibit compensatory growth. The objective was to evaluate the effects of deoxynivalenol (DON)-contaminated low-complexity diets supplemented with NutraMix™ or fish oil on growth performance and immune response. 320 newly weaned pigs were assigned to either a [1] high-complexity, [2] low-complexity or [3] DON-contaminated (3 ppm) low complexity diet without additive, [4] with NutraMix™ (0.2%) or [5] fish oil (2.5%) for 3 weeks. Thereafter, an E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge was performed, and the remaining pigs were fed a common, uncontaminated diet for 3 additional weeks. Though DON-contaminated low complexity diets initially reduced growth performance, all pigs achieved the same final body weight (26.1 kg) following the recovery period. During the LPS challenge, pigs fed NutraMix™- supplemented diets had increased relative liver weights and improved interferon-γ response compared to pigs fed the other DON-contaminated diets. Therefore, nursery pigs can express compensatory growth after exposure to diets containing 3 ppm DON. This indicates that low complexity diets could be used to reduce feed costs, even when DON is present in cereal grains. NutraMix™ may improve the immune response during a disease challenge and when feeding DON-contaminated low-complexity diets.

Key words: Nursery pigs, compensatory growth, deoxynivalenol.

Introduction

Nursery pig diets typically contain highly digestible and expensive ingredients (e.g., animal protein sources) to combat the post-weaning growth lag (Campbell and Dunkin, 1983; Lallès et al., 2004). However, after an initial reduction in growth performance, nursery pigs fed simple, corn-and soybean meal (SBM)-based diets can achieve body weights not different from pigs fed nursery diets that contain highly digestible ingredients via compensatory growth (Skinner et al., 2014). This phenomenon could allow for an increased inclusion of plant-based ingredients in nursery diets and to that end, lower feed costs. Soy proteins are also known to induce transient allergic and inflammatory responses (Chen et al., 2011), which may compromise immune function of nursery pigs. Moreover, increasing the inclusion of plant-based ingredients also increases the risk of mycotoxin contamination in nursery diets. Deoxynivalenol (DON) is a common mycotoxin that infests cereal grains (Rodrigues and Naehrer, 2012). When present at > 1 ppm in swine rations, DON has been linked to reduced growth performance and impaired immune function (Rotter et al., 1994) and may interfere with the expression of compensatory growth. Immune modulating feed additives (i.e. blends of antioxidants, preservatives, and amino acids and omega-3 fatty acids) could rescue pig growth performance and immune function in instances of dietary DON contamination (Van Le Thanh et al., 2015; Jin et al., 2017; Huber et al., 2018), which could facilitate compensatory growth, even when DON is present in simple (low-complexity) nursery diets. Therefore, the objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of supplementing low complexity DON-contaminated nursery diets with immune-modulating feed additives on growth performance and immune function.

Methodology

Three hundred and twenty newly weaned pigs (6.7 ± 0.3 kg BW) were divided into 40 pens and randomly assigned 1 of 5 dietary treatments (n = 8): [1] a high-complexity diet containing multiple animal protein sources (HC) or 1 of 4 low-complexity diets containing only plant-based proteins with [2] no DON contamination (LC), or with 3 ppm DON contamination [3] without feed additives (DON-), [4] with NutraMix™ (2 g/kg; DONNM) or [5] with fish oil (2.5%, as-fed; DONω3). Dietary treatments were fed for phases I and II for 7 and 15 days, respectively. Phase III was a common corn-SBM diet which was fed for the subsequent 20 days (recovery phase). Individual pig body weight and per-pen feed disappearance were recorded weekly. After phase II (day 22), an E. coli lipopolysaccharide (LPS) challenge was performed where 2 pigs per pen were injected with 30 μg/kg BW of LPS and 1 pig with 1 mL saline. Rectal temperatures were collected at 0, 1, 2, and 3 hours post-injection. Thereafter, plasma was collected for cytokine analysis.

Results

In phase I, ADG, ADFI and G:F were not different for pigs fed the HC and LC diets (Table 1), but were lower for both DON additive treatments (P < 0.05); intermediate values were observed for DON-. In phase II, pigs fed the DON- and DONω3 diets had lower ADG than LC (P < 0.05), lower ADFI than HC (P < 0.05), but greater G:F than those fed HC (P < 0.05). By the end of phase II (end of the treatment phase), the BW of pigs fed the HC and LC diets were not different, pigs fed DONω3 tended to have lower BW than those fed HC and LC (P = 0.084 and 0.079, respectively), and pigs fed DON- and DONNM had intermediate BW. In phase III and over the entire nursery period, there were no treatment effects on ADG, ADFI, G:F or final BW. The LPS challenge induced an immune response, marked by an increase in rectal temperature between 0 and 3 hours after injection (39.9 vs. 40.8°C; P < 0.001), which was not influenced by dietary treatment. The LPS injection increased plasma interferon-γ (IFN-γ) concentrations for pigs fed DONNM, HC, and LC diets (Figure 1). However, plasma concentrations of IFN-γ were not different between the saline- and LPS-injected pigs fed the DON- and DONω3 diets, since the baseline (i.e. of saline-injected pigs) plasma IFN-γ concentrations were already approximately twice that of saline-injected pigs fed HC, LC, and DONNM diets. Additionally, the IFN-γ response to LPS for pigs fed the DONω3 diets was ~30% less than pigs that received the other dietary treatments.

Conclusion

Nursery pigs expressed compensatory growth after exposure to low complexity nursery diets contaminated with 3 ppm DON following a recovery period. Therefore, even in times of moderate DON contamination of cereal grains, low complexity nursery diets could be used to decrease production costs, though immune-modulating feed additives may provide benefits during instances of additional immune system stimulation.

Table 1. Effect of DON-contaminated nursery diets supplemented with NutraMix™ or fish oil on pig growth performance during the nursery period

Figure 1. Effect of DON-contaminated nursery diets supplemented with NutraMix™ or fish oil on plasma IFN-γ concentration of pigs injected with LPS or saline at day 22 post-weaning

Presented at the 2021 Animal Nutrition Conference of Canada. For information on the next edition, click here.

References

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The Effects of Supplementing Low-Complexity Deoxynivalenol-Contaminated Nursery Diets with NutraMix™ or Fish Oil on Growth Performance and Immune Function

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