Effects of Dietary Alfalfa Saponin on Digestive Physiology in Weaned Piglets

Abstract

Background: Saponins have been considered to affect the digestion of animal because of its relatively complex compound. Regarding the effect of saponins on animal production performance, different animals or the same animals with different physiological periods are different. The purpose of this experiment was to evaluate the effect of dietary alfalfa saponins (AS) on the digestive physiology of piglets. Methods: 72 weaned piglets (Duroc × Landrace × Large white pigs) were weaned at 28 days of age with an average weight of 7.5 kg and assigned randomly to 4 treatment groups. Diets containing 0, 0.5%, 1%, 2% alfalfa saponins were fed to piglets. Result: The results showed that: Alfalfa saponins increased daily gain and decreased diarrhea in piglets to some extent. It tended to decrease the pH value of the gastrointestinal tract and increase the pH value of the jejunum (P less than 0.05), ileum and cecum (P less than 0.05). AS had no obvious inhibitory effect on Escherichia coli, but had an increasing trend on the number of intestine Lactobacillus, especially Lactobacillus in jejunum increased significantly by adding 2% AS (P less than 0.05). Adding 2% alfalfa saponins can improve the digestive physiology of piglets.