Gut health is challenged from antibiotic-free feed! Well, there are two core strategies to help gut health,
A) Intestinal cell: maintain complete structure, no damages
B) Intestinal bacteria flora: maintain composition balance, no disorders
Regarding the destruction of intestinal cell structure, there are two main factors:
1. Exogenous: The toxic and harmful substances from feed (e.g antigenic proteins, histamine produced by protein spoilage, formaldehyde and ketones produced by fatty acid rancidity, toxins etc.)
2. Endogenous: The toxins and harmful substances produced from undigested and unabsorbed substances, internal and external toxins from bacteria, etc.
Today, we will discuss on the exogenous factors.
Mass categories of anti-nutritional factors (ANF) are brought from feed. It will be effective measures to help on gut health of piglets under antibiotic-free through well understanding of limitations on ANF and reasonable combination of raw materials. Anti-Nutritional Factors (ANF)
Anti-nutritional factors refers to substances that adversely affect the process of digestion, absorption and utilization of nutrients and cause adverse reaction in animals. Anti- nutritional factors include mainly two categories: self-contained or spoil of substance. Self-contained anti-nutritional factors are usually a kind of self protection mechanism of plants, which play an important role in the prevention of self tissue degradation, growth regulation, insect resistance and other aspects of regulation and protection.
Limitations on six categories of ANF in piglet feed
1. Antigen proteins (the following conclusions are confirmed without any effect on production performances)
Glycinin: not exceed 1.7% in feed of 14-32d piglets (Sun et al. 2008)
β-conglycinin: not exceed 1.0% in the feed of 10-30d piglets (Hao et al. 2009; Wu et al. 2016)
Table 1 Antigen protein research on weaned piglets.
Table 2 The content of antigen protein in soybean proteins
2. Oligosaccharides (low dose is beneficial, high dose is harmful)
Stachyose: 1% are good for growth of nursery pigs, while 2% and above retards growth (Zhang et al. 2003; Pan Baohai 2011)
Raffinose: 0.4% is good for growth of nursery pigs, while 0.8% and above retards growth (Liu Ling et al. 2017)
Table 3 Oligosaccharide Research on Weaned Piglets
Table 4. The content of oligosaccharides in the production of commonly used soybean protein raw materials
3. Histamine (low dose is beneficial, high dose is harmful)
Histamine: it is beneficial to use 1.5 mg/kg in feed of 28-60d piglets, while it’s harmful to use more than 5 mg/kg. (Leng Xiangjun and Wang Kangning, 2003)
Table 5. Research on Histamine Used on Weaned Piglets
Table 6. The content of histamine in raw materials
4. Fat oxidation rancidity products (acid value)
Acid value: no more than 28mg KOH/g in the feed of 28-60d piglets
Table 7. Study on the effect of oxidative rancidity in weaned piglets
Table 8. Value of acid value in raw materials
5. Mycotoxins (3 major toxins and limit requirements)
Table 9. Limitations of Mycotoxins in Feed
Table 10. Content of the main three mycotoxins in raw materials (average)
6. Non-starch polysaccharide NSP (low dose is beneficial, high dose is harmful)
NSP: Soluble NSP 3% in suckling pig feed is beneficial. It will be harmful when xylan exceed 8.4%, or mannan exceed 14%.
Table 11. Study of Non-starch Polysaccharide NSP on Piglets
Table 12. NSP content of commonly used raw materials
[Note 1] Types of NSP: insoluble NSP (cellulose, present in all plant cells, especially high content of plant seed coat); soluble NSP (mainly Arabinoxylan -- mainly exist in the cell wall of wheat, rye seed coat and paste, Beta-glucan -- mainly exist in the endosperm cell wall of barley and oats, Mannan mainly the endosperm cell wall of legumes) (Wu Xilin, 2001).
[Note 2] The mechanism of NSP anti-nutrition: the anti-nutritional ingredients are mainly soluble NSP. On one hand, soluble NSP can combine with a large amount of water to form a gel-like viscous substance, reducing the digestion and absorption of nutrients through increasing the viscosity of the digestive tract contents and reducing the speed of chyme circulation prevents the digestive enzymes from fully contacting the chyme; on the other hand, it destroys the balance of intestinal flora (undigested nutrients are utilized by microorganisms and the slow movement of chyme leads to the settlement of bacteria in the small intestine) (Zhang Bingying, 2006).
■ Piglet feed is usually a corn-soybean meal diet. When the protein nutrition is consist of ordinary soy proteins, a risk of antigen proteins and oligosaccharides exceeding the limit must be there. When an animal protein of unsteady quality used in the feed, a risk of exceeding the limit of histamine and acid value must be there.
■ It will be an effective way to help on intestinal health of piglets through proper combination of proteins to decrease anti-nutritional factors and damages to intestine.
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