Supplementation of selenium, vitamin E, chromium and betaine above recommended levels improves lactating performance of sows over summer

Abstract

Heat stress (HS) exacerbates the body weight loss of lactating sows and reduces litter weight gain. Selenium (Se), vitamin E (VE), chromium (Cr) and betaine have been shown to ameliorate symptoms of HS, and yeast nucleotides and mannan oligosaccharides have been reported to improve lactational performance and immune response in pigs. Therefore, a combination of these nutrients may improve lactational performance of sows in summer. The effects of two nutritionally enhanced diets on lactational performance of sows in summer were investigated in two experiments. In experiment 1, we compared the effects of a nutritionally fortified diet (0.4 ppm Se, 95 IU/kg VE, 0.4 ppm Cr and 0.2% betaine; named as SVCB diet) with the NRC 2012 standard diet (0.15 ppm Se, 44 IU/kg VE) on lactational performance of sows in summer. Results showed that the SVCB diet reduced body weight loss (P = 0.039) and tended to reduce backfat loss (P = 0.075) of sows without affecting feed intake, while litter weight gain was not influenced. In experiment 2, we further enhanced the nutrients in the SVCB diet (0.8 ppm Se, 1% yeast nucleotides, and 0.1% mannan oligosaccharides; named as SNM diet). Results showed that the SNM diet did not improve feed intake of sows, farrowing performance, or litter weight gain compared with the SVCB diet, but increased body weight loss of the third parity sows (P = 0.037). Overall, a combined supplementation of Se, VE, Cr, and betaine above the NRC recommended levels can reduce mobilisation of body reserve of lactating sows in summer.

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

“…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.…”

Digestible threonine-to-lysine ratio for piglets under health challenge

“…The serum urea content was not influenced (P>0.05) by the Thr/Lys ratios. Average maximum and minimum temperatures as well as air relative humidity remained within the thermoneutral zone for piglets in a nursery (Liu et al, 2017). Thus, the environmental conditions must not have interfered with the observed variations in the parameters.…”

Effects of L‐citrulline supplementation on heat stress physiology, lactation performance and subsequent reproductive performance of sows in summer

“…The dosage of the L‐citrulline used in this experiment is based on an experiment by Morita et al, () in the rabbit model, whereby 0.50 g/kg (body weight) via gavage numerically increased the ear blood flow by approximately 7%. Sows were restrict fed 2.5–4 kg from entry until day 3 after farrowing and then fed ad libitum as previously described (Liu et al, ). Water was supplied ad libitum via nipple drinkers.…”