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. 2013 Aug 3;4(1):29.
doi: 10.1186/2049-1891-4-29.

Effects of creep feeding and supplemental glutamine or glutamine plus glutamate (Aminogut) on pre- and post-weaning growth performance and intestinal health of piglets

Rafael A Cabrera  1 , James L Usry, Consuelo Arrellano, Eduardo T Nogueira, Marianne Kutschenko, Adam J Moeser, Jack Odle
Affiliations

Effects of creep feeding and supplemental glutamine or glutamine plus glutamate (Aminogut) on pre- and post-weaning growth performance and intestinal health of piglets

Rafael A Cabrera et al. J Anim Sci Biotechnol. .

Abstract

Background: Creep feeding is used to stimulate piglet post-weaning feed consumption. L-Glutamine (GLN) is an important source of fuel for intestinal epithelial cells. The objective of this study was to determine the impact of creep feeding and adding GLN or AminoGut (AG; containing glutamine + glutamate) to pre- and post-weaning diets on pig performance and intestinal health. Litters (N = 120) were allotted to four treatments during 14-21 d of lactation: 1) No creep feed (NC, n = 45); 2) creep fed control diet (CFCD, n = 45); 3) creep fed 1% GLN (CFGLN, n = 15); 4) creep fed .88% AG (CFAG, n = 15). After weaning, the NC and CFCD groups were sub-divided into three groups (n = 15 each), receiving either a control nursery diet (NC-CD, CFCD-CD) or a diet supplemented with either GLN (NC-GLN, CFCD-GLN) or with AG (NC-AG, CFCD-AG). Litters that were creep fed with diets containing GLN or AG also were supplemented with those amino acids in the nursery diets (CFGLN-GLN, CFAG-AG). Glutamine was added at 1% in all three post-weaning diet phases and AG was added at .88% in phase 1 and 2 and at .66% in phase 3.

Results: Feed conversion (feed/gain) showed means among treatment means close to significance (P = 0.056) and Tukey's test for pairwise mean comparisons showed that Pigs in the CFGLN-GLN group had the best feed conversion (feed/gain) in the first three-week period post-weaning, exceeding (P = 0.044) controls (CFCD-CD) by 34%. The NC-AG group had (P = 0.02) the greatest feed intake in the last three week of the study, exceeding controls (CFCD-CD) by 12%. CFGLN-GLN, CFCD-GLN and sow reared (SR) pigs had the greatest (P = 0.049) villi height exceeding the CFCD-AG group by 18%, 20% and 19% respectively. The CFAG-AG group had the deepest (P = 0.001) crypts among all treatments. CFGLN-GLN, CFCD-GLN and SR groups had the greatest (P = 0.001) number of cells proliferating (PCNA) exceeding those in the NC-CD group by 43%, 54% and 63% respectively. Sow reared pigs showed the greatest (P = 0.001) intestinal absorption capacity for xylose and mannitol.

Conclusion: Supplementation of creep feed and nursery diets with GLN and/or AminoGut in the first three week improved feed conversion possibly due to improved intestinal health.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Experimental design showing four pre-weaning creep diet groups and eight post-weaning diet groups together with sow-reared control pigs. Creep feed was initiated 1 week prior to weaning and consisted of pelleted Phase 1 diets. Post-weaning diets consisted of either control basal diet (see Table 1) with additions of either 1% L-GLN (in all feed Phases 1–3) or 0.88% AminoGut in Phases 1 and 2 and 0.66% in Phase 3. Pigs were weighted at birth, weaning, (some at 1 wk post-weaning), 3 wk and 6 wk post-weaning. Selected pigs were euthanized (n = 7/trt) at 1 wk post-weaning for intestinal health measurements. Various treatment abbreviations are also summarized.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scanning electron micrographs of jejunal villi of pigs at four wk of age. A. No creep Control Diet (NC-CD). B. No creep Glutamine (NC-GLN). C. No creep AminoGut (NC-AG). D. Creep Fed Control Diet-Control Diet (CFCD-CD). E. Creep Fed Control Diet-Glutamine (CFCD-GLN). F. Creep Fed Control-AminoGut (CFCD-AG). G. Creep Fed Glutamine-Glutamine (CFGLN-GLN). H. Creep Fed AminoGut-AminoGut (CFAG-AG). I. Sow-Reared Control.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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