EFFECT OF SODIUM BUTYRATE PROTECTED WITH MCFA ON PERFORMANCE IN PIGLETS

In the last 2019 Midwest Meeting (ASAS Annual Meeting) was presented the study evaluating different levels of sodium butyrate protected with medium chain fatty acids (SB-MCFA) on growth performance and complete blood cell count. A total of 344 weaned pigs (21d) were used. Pigs were blocked by initial BW and randomly allotted to 1 of 4 dietary treatments. Treatments included a control corn-soybean-meal based diet (CON) and 3 diets in which: T1= 0.05%, T2=0.10%, or T3=0.15% of SB-MCFA was added to the control diet. Blood was collected at the beginning of the experiment and at the end of each phase to determine complete blood cell count. Increasing dietary SB-MCFA increased weight gain (0.32, 0.35, 0.35 and 0.33, for CON, T1, T2 and T3; quadratic P<0.05), ADFI (0.50, 0.53, 0.53 and 0.50, for CON, T1, T2 and T3; quadratic, P=0.05), and final BW (17.9, 18.8, 18.8, and 18.2, for CON, T1, T2 and T3; quadratic, P<0.05). Total white blood cell and eosinophil cell count tended to increase with increasing SB-MCFA (white blood cell, 14.2, 15.2, 14.6 and 13.1 for CON, T1, T2 and T3; quadratic, P=0.07 and eosinophil, 1.09, 1.13, 1.40 and 0.91 for CON, T1, T2 and T3; quadratic, P=0.08). The lymphocyte cell count tended to decrease (5.99, 6.28, 5.75 and 5.55 for CON, T1, T2 and T3; linear, P=0.09) with increasing SB-MCFA. Results indicated that feeding SB-MCFA during the nursery phase tended to alter blood cell count and improved growth performance