63 Late-Breaking: Effects of a dietary supplementation of piglet diets with a combination of live yeast and yeast cell wall fraction as alternative to ZnO on the health and performance of nursery piglets.

Abstract The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of supplementing nursery piglets with a combination of yeast probiotics and postbiotics on performance, gut health, and oxidative stress markers during the weaning transition compared to ZnO supplementation as a positive control. On weaning days, 224 pigs [Duroc × (Landrace × Yorkshire)], average body weight 6.62 ± 0.1 kg were stratified by sex, litter, and weaning weight and randomly assigned to one of four treatment groups (8 pigs/pen, 7 pens/treatment). Piglets were fed either basal diet (Negative Control, G1) or basal diet supplemented with either1600 ppm ZnO (Positive control, G2), 750g/t yeast probiotic + 500g/t postbiotic yeast (G3), 500g/t yeast probiotic + 300g/t postbiotic yeast (G4) during phase I (d0-d14) postweaning. In Phase II (d15-d28 postweaning), G1 and G2 received the basal diet only, while the other two groups received the basal diet supplemented with lower doses of the probiotic and postbiotic products (500g/t yeast probiotic + 300g/t postbiotic yeast (G3), and 350g/t yeast probiotic + 300g/t postbiotic yeast (G4). The yeast probiotics (Actisaf Sc 47) and postbiotics yeast (Safmannan) are proprietary products of Phileo by Lesaffre (Marcq-en Baroeul, France). Performance parameters were measured every week and blood samples taken for antioxidant capacity analysis on d14 and d28. Intestinal tissue samples were also collected on d14 and d28 for histological and mucosal immune response analysis. Data were analyzed by one-way ANOVA using the GLM procedure of SAS 9.4 (SAS Institute Inc., Cary, USA). As expected, ZnO significantly improved (P < 0.001) average daily gain between day 7 and 14 as compared to all other groups. However, there was no difference in ADG, ADFI and FCR between groups in other time-points. Diarrheal rate was significantly lower and fecal consistency improved (P < 0.05) in the ZnO group (G2) and the high dose yeast probiotic plus postbiotic yeast treated group (G3) on day 14. On day 28 the diarrheal rate was significantly lower (p=0.014) in the probiotic and postbiotic treated groups (G3 & G4) as compared to the ZnO and control groups (G1 & G2). Furthermore, serum antioxidant enzymes SOD and GSH-PX were significantly higher (P < 0.001), while the concentration MDA significantly reduced on d14 and d28 in all the treated groups as compared to the negative control (G1). Intestinal health was also significantly improved by treatment compared to the negative control (G1) as shown by the decreased proinflammatory cytokines, as well as the significant increase (P < 0.01) in villi height and VH:CD ratio both on d14 and d28. Overall, these results showed that the supplementation of piglet diets with yeast probiotics and postbiotics improved serum antioxidant status and intestinal health while decreasing the incidence of diarrhea to the same level of ZnO supplementation.