Feeding tuna oil to the sow at different times during pregnancy has different effects on piglet long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid composition at birth and subsequent growth

Abstract

In an attempt to prevent decreases in piglet 20 : 4n-6 status at birth while increasing 22 : 6n-3 status, multiparous sows (eight per treatment) were allocated to one of three different treatments: a basal diet fed from day 63 of pregnancy to term; basal diet supplemented with tuna oil (17´5 g/kg) from day 63 to day 91 and then basal diet alone from day 92 to term; basal diet alone from day 63 to day 91 and then basal diet supplemented with tuna oil from day 92 to term. Tuna oil supplementation increased mainly 22 : 6n-3 intake. Supplementation with tuna oil between day 92 and term increased 22 : 6n-3 to a greater extent in all piglet tissues (brain, liver, retina and the remaining carcass) at birth than supplementation with tuna oil between days 63 and 91. However, while piglet 20 : 4n-6 decreased to a greater extent in liver and carcass when diets were supplemented with tuna oil between days 92 and term than between days 63 and 91, in the brain and retina, the reverse was true; 20 : 4n-6 was decreased to a greater extent between days 63 and 91 than between 92 and term. The effect of pregnancy nutrition on the growth of piglets until 7 d postweaning (35 d of age) was assessed after removing any residual effects of pregnancy treatment by cross-fostering some piglets at birth. Piglets, the diets of whose dams had been supplemented with tuna oil during pregnancy, grew faster during the first 35 d of life than the progeny of sows fed only the basal diet. Feeding tuna oil to sows at different times during pregnancy therefore did not prevent decreases in piglet 20 : 4n-6 status at birth, but did suggest that changes in piglet brain 20 : 4n-6 status between days 63 and 91 of pregnancy were not reversible by later nutrition. Supplementing the diet of the pregnant sow with tuna oil had beneficial effects on postnatal piglet growth. Pregnancy: Dietary fatty acids: Piglet tissue fatty acidsBoth pre-and immediate postweaning mortality of piglets are important sources of losses to the pig industry (Varley, 1995). Furthermore, poor growth in the same periods results in longer-term reductions in performance (Mahan & Lepine, 1991). Long-chain essential fatty acids (chain length .18) of the n-6 and n-3 series are important for brain development and function (Uauy et al. 2000). Docosahexaenoic acid (22 : 6n-3) is a major constituent of synaptic end sites and may be necessary for the formation of mature synaptosomes, while arachidonic acid (20 : 4n-6) may be a second messenger (Kurlak & Stephenson, 1999). In the pig, as in the human subject (Clandinin et al. 1980), brain growth and therefore accretion of 22 : 6n-3 is greatest in the last third of pregnancy (Sweasey et al. 1976; Passingham, 1985) and continues into postnatal life. Since commercial pig diets are based on cereals that do not contain long-chain n-3 fatty acids, a contributory factor to low piglet viability at birth and subsequent growth may be an imbalance or deficiency of these acids in the diet of the pregnant sow. Rooke et al. (1998Rooke et al. ( , 1999 showed th...

Responses to n-3 fatty acid (LCPUFA) supplementation of gestating gilts, and lactating and weaned sows

“…BW from birth until the end of the nursery period (34 days after weaning) tended to be higher in litters from n-3 LCPUFA fed sows in the present study, again consistent with earlier studies (Rooke et al, 2000 and2001b;Mateo et al, 2009). As Taugbol et al (1993 and Fritsche et al (1993) did not find an effect on weaning weight when n-3 LCPUFA supplementation started at day 107 of gestation, and Smits et al (2011) did not find an effect on piglet growth and weaning weight when feeding n-3 LCPUFAs from 8 days before farrowing, longer periods of supplementation may be needed in gestation to produce positive effects on litter weaning weight.…”

“…This confirms that either DHA is taken up through the placenta into the embryo during early pregnancy or that more EPA was taken up by the embryo and then converted to DHA. As tissues of pigs from n-3 LCPUFA supplemented sows also showed higher EPA and DHA levels at birth than pigs from Control sows (Rooke et al, 2001b and2001c), it is likely that n-3 LCPUFA uptake continues throughout gestation, although Amusquivar et al (2010) showed that n-3 LCPUFA levels were increased in sow milk and pig plasma when sows were only supplemented with n-3 LCPUFA during the first half of gestation (days 1 to 60), suggesting that n-3 LCPUFAs can be stored in maternal adipose tissue and mobilized during milk production. When sows were supplemented with n-3 LCPUFAs in gestation and lactation, n-3 LCPUFA levels were also higher in colostrum and milk (Taugbol et al, 1993;Rooke et al, 2000 and2001a).…”

“…Studies in sows have shown benefits of n-3 long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid (LCPUFA) supplementation on postnatal growth (Rooke et al, 2000 and2001b;Mateo et al, 2009) and pre-weaning mortality of the litter (Rooke et al, 2001a). Others report an increase in live pigs born to gilts (Edwards and Pike, 1997;Spencer et al, 2004) and sows (Webel et al, 2003 andSmits et al, 2011) when supplementing with n-3 LCPUFA at various stages of gestation, lactation and/or during rebreeding, and Webel et al (2004) hypothesized that the observed increased litter size was because of improved embryonic survival at day 30 of gestation, rather than differences in ovulation rate.…”

Effects of dietary enrichment with a marine oil-based n-3 LCPUFA supplement in sows with predicted birth weight phenotypes on growth performance and carcass quality of offspring

“…As discussed by Smit et al (2013a), interpretation of effects of mLCPUFA treatment on survivability may be difficult due to confounding effects of gestation length and the use of induced farrowing, as was again the practice in the present trial. Although brain weight was not different between treatments (Smit et al, 2014), the DHA concentration in brain tissue was higher in stillborns from mLCPUFA-fed sows compared with controls, which is in agreement with other research (Rooke et al, 2000 and2001a), and was not surprising considering the importance of DHA for brain development (Innis, 2007). Higher DHA levels in the brain could lead to increased postnatal growth rates due to a change in behavior.…”

Neonatal lamb vigour is improved by feeding docosahexaenoic acid in the form of algal biomass during late gestation

“…Recent work has shown that feeding fish oil, as a source of long-chain n-3 FAs, during gestation improved the viability of the neonate in monogastric (Rooke et al, 2001) and in ruminant animals (Dawson and Edgar, 2005;Capper et al, 2006). However, the importance of period of inclusion of n-3 FAs in gestation diets has not yet been thoroughly explored.…”