Dietary nano-chromium tripicolinate increases feed intake and decreases plasma cortisol in finisher gilts during summer

Abstract

Chromium (Cr) is an essential mineral element and has been used in pig diets to improve growth performance, insulin sensitivity, immune response and carcase traits and to reduce heat or other stress responses. The aims of thiss study were to determine the impact of nano-sized chromium tripicolinate (nCrPic) on growth performance, feed efficiency and carcase characteristics of finisher gilts during the summer period. A total of 60 finisher Large White x Landrace gilts were stratified on initial weight and then within strata randomly allocated into two treatment groups in three replicates during mid-summer for 28 days. All pigs were housed in individual pens and had ad libitum access to feed and water. Pigs were fed either a control finisher diet (wheat-based diet containing 13.8 MJ digestible energy (DE) per kilogram and 0.56 g available lysine/MJ DE) or a control diet containing 400 ppb Cr as nCrPic. Dietary nCrPic supplementation increased feed intake by 6 % over the entire study (P = 0.05). In particular, dietary nCrPic increased average daily feed intake (ADFI) by 8 % (P = 0.02) during the final 2 weeks of the study. Moreover, dietary nCrPic tended to improve average daily feed (ADFI) over the entire study (P = 0.09). However, there were no significant effects of nCrPic on feed conversion ratio (FCR), final weight, hot standard carcase weight (HCWT), P2 depth or dressing percentage. Plasma cortisol was decreased by 25 % (P = 0.06) by dietary nCrPic supplementation. However, there were no effects of nCrPic on plasma glucose, insulin and nonesterified fatty acids (NEFA), might because of the higher feed intake. In conclusion, this study demonstrates that dietary nCrPic supplementation at 400 ppb can increase feed intake in finisher gilts during mid-summer, suggesting that nCrPic can ameliorate some of the negative effects of heat stress in pigs, possibly via decreased of circulating cortisol.

Effects of dietary chromium propionate on growth performance, metabolism, and immune biomarkers in heat-stressed finishing pigs1

“…Dietary Cr is thought to potentiate insulin action by facilitating the binding of insulin to its extracellular receptor (NRC, 1997;Vincent, 2000), consequently enhancing cellular glucose uptake (Chen et al, 2006). Additionally, previous studies indicate that Cr supplementation improves ADFI, growth performance, reproductive parameters, and the immune response in multiple species (Burton et al, 1993;Lindemann et al, 1995;Hayirli et al, 2001;Sadri et al, 2009;Sales and Jancik, 2011;Hung et al, 2014;Yasui et al, 2014). We hypothesized supplementing Cr may enhance animal productivity and health during HS.…”

“…Accordingly, Kim et al (2009) and Seibert et al (2018) did not observe differences in growth performance of heat-stressed pigs supplemented with Cr. In contrast, increased ADFI and improved ADG and lactating performance were observed in pigs supplemented with Cr during the summer (Hung et al, 2014;Liu et al, 2017). Variations of the phenotypic responses to Cr supplementation during HS might be due to dissimilar experimental models, species, Cr source, supplementation doses, and type of HS insult.…”

“…Interestingly, regardless of environment, pigs fed Cr had a tendency for increased ADFI (~3%) compared with Ctl-fed pigs. Despite inconsistencies (Kegley et al, 2000;Mathews et al, 2001;Uyanik et al, 2002), Cr supplementation has been shown to increase ADFI in a variety of species (Hayirli et al, 2001;Sahin et al, 2003;Hung et al, 2014). Additionally, pigs fed Cr during HS tended to have increased ADG and final BW.…”

“…Dietary chromium (Cr) is thought to increase traditional farm animal productivity parameters via increasing insulin action in insulin-sensitive tissues (i.e., adipose and muscle; Davis and Vincent, 1997). Despite inconsistencies (Kim et al, 2009;Seibert et al, 2018), dietary Cr has been shown to stimulate feed intake (Hayirli et al, 2001;Hung et al, 2014) and improve growth, carcass characteristics, and reproductive performance in a variety of species (Lindemann et al, 1995;Soltan, 2010). Additionally, previous studies indicate improved immune function with Cr supplementation (Burton et al, 1993;Horst et al, 2018), suggesting dietary Cr may play an important role during immunoactivation.…”

Effects of chromium supplementation on physiology, feed intake, and insulin related metabolism in growing pigs subjected to heat stress

“…Chromium supplementation has been shown to improve lipid metabolism in hyperinsulinemic rats ( Cefalu et al, 2002 ) and reduces body fat composition in pigs ( Lindemann et al, 1995 ; Hung et al, 2015 ), therefore Cr may normalize lipid mobilization in heatstressed pigs if hyperinsulinemia is the reason for the reduced lipolysis in the heat-stressed pigs. However, the reports on the effects of Cr supplementation in mitigating HS impacts in pigs are limited and vary; for example, Cr did not affect growth performance or blood cortisol in heat-stressed weaning pigs ( Kim et al, 2009 ), but Cr increased feed intake and reduced blood cortisol in heatstressed finisher pigs ( Hung et al, 2014 ). Therefore, the aim of the study was to systematically investigate the effects of Cr on physiology, feed intake, and insulin related metabolism in growing pigs during HS.…”