Productive Performance, Stress Response, and Immune Status of Nursery Pigs Fed a Diet Containing Hemp Seed Meal

This study aimed to examine hemp seed meal (HSM) in the nursery pig diet for productive performance, stress response, and immune status. Forty castrated [(Landrace × Large White) × Duroc] pigs, 3 weeks of age with an initial body weight of 5.48±0.2 kg were used in this study. The pigs were divided into four groups with 10 replicates per group. The experiment design was a completely randomized design. The dietary treatments were the control group fed the basal diet without HSM (HSM0) and the groups fed diet contained 5, 10 and 15% HSM (HSM5, HSM10 and HSM15), respectively. The results showed that HSM had significant nutritional value with crude fat, crude protein, crude fiber, and lysine of 7.95, 32.46, 12.94 and 1.49%, respectively. In addition, it had gross energy of 3,594 kcal/kg. The use of HSM in the nursery pig diet showed that the average daily feed intake during weeks 1-2 of the pigs in the HSM10 group was better than the HSM15 (p<0.05) group. Additionally, their bodyweight gain and average daily gain throughout the trial were greater than other groups (P<0.05). There were no significant differences (P>0.05) in the feed conversion ratio (FCR) between the experimental groups. The stress conditions caused by oxidative reactions were observed by the level of enzymes in the plasma of the pigs. The lowest concentration of superoxide dismutase (SOD) and the highest of glutathione peroxidase (GPx) (P<0.05) were found in HSM15 group. The HSM5 group had the minimum cortisol hormone levels (P<0.05), which were not statistically different from the HSM10 group. It was also found that the HSM10 group had the highest immunoglobulin M (IgM) concentration (P< 0.05), while the pig in groups HSM10 and HSM15 had the highest immunoglobulins G (IgG) concentrations (P<0.05). In conclusion, the use of HSM at 10% level in the diet was the most efficiency for nursery pigs.