A Longer Adaptation Period to a Functional Amino Acid-supplemented Diet Improves Growth Performance and Attenuates Acute-phase Response in Salmonella Typhimurium-challenged Pigs

Functional amino acid supplementation during disease challenge enhances growth performance and immune status. The present study investigated the effect of duration of adaptation period to a functional amino acid (FAA)-supplemented diet on growth performance and immune status during a subsequent Salmonella challenge in pigs. Thirty-two mixed-sex weanling pigs (8 pigs/treatment; 11.6 ± 0.34 kg initial body weight) received either a basal diet without FAA supplementation throughout the experimental period (FAA-) or a diet containing a supplemented FAA profile (Thr, Met, and Trp at 120% of requirements) fed for either 0 (FAA+0), 1 (FAA+1) or 2 (FAA+2) wk pre- and 1 wk post-inoculation with Salmonella Typhimurium (ST). Pigs were orally inoculated with saline containing ST after the 2 wk pre-inoculation period and monitored for 1 wk post-inoculation. Pigs had ad libitum access to diets throughout the experiment. Performance parameters [average daily gain (ADG), feed intake, and gain:feed (GF)] were measured in the pre- and post-inoculation periods. Blood samples were collected on d 0, 4, and 7 post-inoculation for serum haptoglobin and albumin analysis. There was no effect of diet on pre-inoculation performance (P > 0.05). Post-inoculation, FAA+2 pigs had the highest ADG (0.46 kg/d) and GF  (0.63 kg/kg), FAA- the lowest (0.21 kg/d; 0.29 kg/kg), with FAA+0 (0.33 kg/d; 0.46 kg/kg) and FAA+1 (0.40 kg/d; 0.53 kg/kg) being intermediate (ADG, P < 0.05, SEM=0.059; GF, P < 0.05, SEM=0.099). Overall, albumin was higher in FAA+2 (35.25 g/L) and FAA+1 (34.63 g/L) pigs compared to FAA+0 (30.38 g/L) and FAA- (29.67 g/L) pigs (P < 0.05, SEM=0.717). Furthermore, FAA+2 pigs had the lowest overall haptoglobin (0.90 g/L), FAA- the highest (1.54 g/L), with FAA+0 (1.32 g/L) and FAA+1 (1.06 g/L) being intermediate (P < 0.05, SEM=0.111). In conclusion, a longer adaptation period to FAA supplementation improved performance and attenuated the immune response of pigs when exposed to an enteric disease challenge.