Explore all the information onSwine gut health
Pigs are exposed to various challenges such as weaning, environmental stressors, unhealthy diet, diseases and infections during their lifetime which adversely affects the gut microbiome. The inability of the pig microbiome to return to the pre-challenge baseline may lead to dysbiosis resulting in the outbreak of diseases. Therefore, the maintenance of gut microbiome diversity, robustness and stability has been influential for optimum intestinal health after perturbations. Nowadays human and animal researches have focused on more holistic approaches to obtain a robust gut microbiota that provides protection against pathogens and improves the digestive physiology and the immune system.
The swine gut microbiome is a complex and dynamic ecosystem harboring immensely diverse microbiota including bacteria, viruses, archaea, and fungi that ideally reside symbiotically in the gut of host animals. Among the microorganisms, the number of bacteria outnumbers other microorganisms.
The microbiome robustness, the maintenance of diverse and functional microbiota in GIT is crucial for effective swine production. The microbiome robustness depends on the diversity of the microbiome, so it is not enough just to have the presence of a few different beneficial microbes. Accordingly, new strategies are required to manipulate the gut microbiome to prevent or revert unhealthy states caused by perturbations.
Better immunity and health Weaners must overcome several major challenges in the first 4 or 5 weeks after weaning: They must transition from sow's milk to creep feed They must build up their own immunity They must transition from highly digestible feed to more soya-based feed These challenges can be strenuous on a piglet's...
Introduction
Infection is known to reduce the productive performance of animals. Pathogen-induce immune activation causes fever and reduces protein synthesis rates in skeletal muscle among other symptoms. In the gut, pathogens can cause diarrhea but its effect on nutrient digestibility is unknown. Our objective was to quantify dynamic changes in amino acid (AA) digestibility and endogenous nitrogen losses (ENL) during...
ABSTRACT Diet formulation and feeding strategies may be used to boost the pigs´ immune system and reduce the negative impact of weaning. Post-weaning diarrhea can be reduced or prevented by feeding diets that have low concentrations of crude protein. Such diets may supply fewer amino acids than recommended and pig growth rate may be reduced, but if pigs are provided a diet with a normal or elevated...
INTRODUCTION Antibiotics have been successfully used in animal production since their discovery for maintaining health and improving performance. However, the risk of bacteria acquiring resistance to specific antibiotics and antibiotic residues in meat led to a ban of antibiotics as growth promoters in European Union (EU) since January 2006. With increasing pressures of antibiotic resistance and food safety concerns, acceptance for the use of...
On our pig farm, Surin Farm – Chiang Mai, Thailand, my Thai wife often takes a heavily leaved branch from a guava tree and throws it into a pen when the pigs have diarrhea. The pigs love to eat the leaves and most of the time within a day the pigs that had diarrhea are once again healthy. Out of curiosity I searched the internet and read about the June 2004 “Healthcare Use for Diarrhea and Dysentery” study where Kaljee L M (et al)...
Introduction
The incidence of zearalenone (ZEA) contamination in animal feeds is increasing in many countries. Therefore, understanding the biological effects of ZEA in addition to its estrogenic effects in pigs becomes important for hog producers.
Material and Methods
Two experiments (EXP) were conducted to investigate the effects of...
A unique two-year research project is being undertaken by Diamond V and the National Animal Disease Center (NADC) of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) to examine the impact of antibiotics, dietary supplements, and stress on the microbial communities and host mucosal tissues of the swine intestinal ecosystem. The goal is to identify alternatives to traditional antibiotics for use in reducing the antibiotic...
1. Introduction In recent decades, acidifiers have emerged as viable alternatives to antibiotics in swine diets, in order to stimulate optimal growth performance and prevent various enteric diseases. Antimicrobials have been used for more than 50 years to enhance growth performance and prevent various pig diseases (Gustafson & Bowen, 1997). There is growing public awareness of the relationship between the feed medication with antimicrobials as...
INTRODUCTION Producing pigs without using antibiotic growth promoters represents a challenge. Disease problems often are elevated and general performance is compromised on farms practicing non-medicated swine production. That is true in particular during the immediate post-weaning period whereas antibiotics can often be removed from diets fed to growing-finishing swine without introducing major disease problems (Wierup, 2001)....
ABSTRACT Enteric diseases are some of the most significant contributors to baby pig morbidity and mortality in the farrowing house. Piglet immunity must be maximized in order to provide them with the opportunity to thrive in the farrowing house. The production of consistent, high quality pigs is a goal all sow operations are working to achieve. By maximizing piglet immunity and using proper husbandry practices, scouring problems can be minimized....
It is now well recognized that the gastrointestinal tract of the pig is colonized by an abundant and taxonomically diverse microbial community. Because each of the species of organisms in the intestine possess a different "tool box" of metabolic capabilities, the relative proportion of different species of organisms changes in response to a variety of factors including age, diet composition, rearing environment and possibly genotype. Indeed, chemical composition...
Probiotics, including live yeast and lactic acid bacteria cultures, have been reported to improve performance of weaned piglets. Milk replacer supplemented with Saccharomyces cerevisiae Sc 47 (Actisaf) and fed to weaned piglets showed improved postweaning growth and reduced number of enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) in piglets after weaning, suggesting an immunomodulatory role of Sc 47. The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of Sc 47 dietary...
Escherichia coli (E. coli) are an important cause of disease in new-born and recently weaned piglets. In new-born piglets, severe watery diarrhoea can be caused by enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) producing F4 (K88), F5 (K99), F41 and or F6 (P987) fimbriae. Colibacillosis in weaned piglets is the result of infection with F4+ or F18+ ETEC or F18+ verotoxigenic E. coli (VTEC). Besides fimbriae, ETEC produce thermolabile (LT), thermostable a (STa) and/or b (STb)...
Introduction It is now accepted that weaning simultaneously subjects piglets to nutritional (e.g. loss of sow´s milk), psychological (e.g. mixing and moving) and environmental (e.g. change in ambient temperature) stressors and that these and other stressors contribute to growth depression typically observed immediately after weaning. Reducing this post-weaning growth lag is critical as it not only affects...
Salmonella control has a high priority in European pork production. It is a significant cause of human salmonellosis and causes major economic losses in the pork production chain, through reduced productivity, increased veterinary and hygiene control costs. Preventing the spread of salmonella to the consumer requires special control measures during slaughter and processing. The extra cost of these controls is increasingly being...
Antibiotic Associated Diarrhoea (AAD) is diarrhoea caused by antibiotic (ATB) supplementation and usually occurring during or following ATB treatment. This phenomenon is highly spread in hospitals or health care houses where patients usually contract diarrhoea when receiving ATB treatment. The major identified bacteria causing AAD is Clostridium difficile . Many C.diff infections can be observed in UK hospitals causing up to death of some patients, mainly...
INTRODUCTION Animals live surrounded by microorganisms (e.g., bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc.) and other antigens (e.g., allergens) that can activate the immune system, which is constantly challenged and must contend with subclinical infections on a daily basis. However, animals show clinical signs of disease quite infrequently because they are equipped with a highly-specialized immune system that affords protection against...
Salmonella control has a high priority in European pork production. It is a significant cause of human Salmonellosis and causes major economic losses in the pork production chain, through reduced productivity, increased veterinary and hygiene control costs. Preventing the spread of salmonella to the consumer requires special control measures during slaughter and processing. The extra cost of these controls is increasingly being...
FUELED BY THE INCREASED FOCUS ON THE PREVENTION OF ANIMAL DISEASES, THE BOOSTING OF THE IMMUNE SYSTEM VIA NUTRITION ALSO GAINS MORE ATTENTION. ANNELIES DIERICX AND JAN VANEYS EXPLAIN HOW A MIX OF COATED BUTYRIC ACID, BETA-GLUCANS, MOS AND A SELECTION OF BOTANICAL EXTRACTS CAN GIVE THE IMMUNE SYSTEM THE BOOST IT NEEDS. ...
Studies prove the effect of FORMI in piglets fed diets with different levels of protein As a consequence of todays common practice in pig breeding the gastro–intestinal system of piglets is not yet fully developed at the time of weaning. This may cause digestive problems and increase susceptibility to pathogenic bacteria such as E. coli and salmonellae. Formerly antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) were added to the feed in order to reduce the risk of infections and improve...