Utilization of low crude protein diets and probiotics to support gut health and function in weaned piglets

仔猪断奶后腹泻会降低生长性能，从而给养猪业造成经济损失。传统上，养猪业通过使用含有高度消化和特殊成分的起始日粮来减轻这些损失，如喷雾干燥的猪血浆和亚治疗水平的抗生素作为生长促进剂。然而，由于担心这些产品对人类健康构成风险，公众对停止在猪饲料中使用动物产品和抗生素施加了巨大的压力。因此，养猪业对确定有效、安全和环保的营养干预措施以取代饲料中抗生素的使用非常感兴趣。现有证据表明，低粗蛋白质-氨基酸补充饲粮（LCP-AA）可作为调节断奶仔猪肠道发育、微生物群落和免疫反应的整体策略的一部分。然而，重要的是，这种饮食是精心配制，以避免氨基酸缺乏。此外，低聚糖aa日粮与其他添加剂（如益生菌）之间可能存在协同效应。因此，将开展研究以确定饲粮中可能限制猪生产性能的氨基酸需要量。我们将研究LCP-AA和益生菌之间的潜在协同作用，以确定预防仔猪腹泻的有效治疗组合。免疫挑战模型将用于有效测试这些干预措施对仔猪肠道健康和功能的支持潜力。该项目的结果将有助于为断奶猪制定可持续的营养管理方案，从而帮助加拿大养猪业适应有关饲料中抗生素使用的新限制，从而保持在国际市场上的竞争力。

Post-weaning diarrhea in piglets reduces growth performance and therefore causes economic losses in the swine industry. Traditionally, the swine industry has mitigated these losses by utilizing starter diets containing highly digestible and specialized ingredients such as spray dried porcine plasma and sub-therapeutic levels of antibiotics as growth promoters. However, there is intense public pressure to discontinue the use of animal products and antibiotics in pig diets for fear that these products pose a risk to human health. Thus, the swine industry is keenly interested in identifying effective, safe and environmentally friendly nutritional interventions that could replace the use of in-feed antibiotics. Existing evidence suggests that low crude protein-amino acid supplemented diets (LCP-AA) could be used as part of the overall strategy to modulate intestinal development, microbial communities, and immune response in weaned piglets. However, it is critical that such diets are carefully formulated to avoid amino acid deficiencies. Also, there may be synergistic effects between LCP-AA diets and other additives such as probiotics. Therefore, research will be conducted to determine requirements of amino acids that are likely to limit performance of pigs fed LCP-AA diets. The potential for synergistic interactions between LCP-AA and probiotics will be studied with a view of identifying a combination of effective therapies for prevention of piglet diarrhea. Immune challenge models will be used to effectively test the potential of these interventions to support gut health and function in piglets. Results of the project will be useful in developing sustainable nutritional management options for weaned pigs thus helping the Canadian swine industry to adapt to new restrictions regarding in-feed antibiotic usage so as to remain competitive at the international market place.