As some options for controlling diarrhea in early-weaned pigs fall out
of favour, Canada’s hog producers are looking for other ways to manage
the problem.
Diarrhea is one of the most serious threats to piglet health worldwide.
At its worst, it can lead to death through dehydration.
A University of Manitoba study recently looked at the merits of
including an egg yolk additive that contains antibodies against the
bacteria that cause diarrhea. Particular attention was paid to E. coli
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K88, the strain mainly responsible for diarrhea in weaned pigs.
The study found that diarrhea in early-weaned pigs can be controlled by
including the egg yolk additive in pig starter diets.
The research also showed that the additive allows the use of less
expensive plant-based proteins in the diets of early-weaned pigs,
including pea protein isolate.
Those findings may prove important to Canada’s hog industry, which
could eventually lose some of the options now available to control
diarrhea in early-weaned pigs, such as antibiotics blended into feed,
spray-dried plasma proteins, organic acids, and zinc and copper salts.
Martin Nyachoti, one of three University of Manitoba researchers
working on the study, said continued use of in-feed antibiotics may
contribute to antibiotic resistance. There are concerns about using
plasma and other animal proteins in livestock feed because of the risk
it might pose to human health through disease transmission. Questions
exist about how excess zinc and copper excreted by the piglets might
affect the environment over the long term.
In the university study, 90 piglets were weaned at 10 days of age at a
weight of about 3.8 kilograms each.
The nursery diet consisted mainly of wheat, oat groats, whey and
soybean meal. Rations were formulated to contain 1.6 percent lysine
over the course of the 14-day experiment.
The diet also contained either spray-dried porcine plasma or pea
protein isolate.
The diet containing the pea protein isolate was fed as is or
supplemented with either egg-yolk antibodies, zinc oxide, fumaric acid
or an in-feed antibiotic.
The antibodies in the egg yolk are created by immunizing laying hens.
The treated hens then produce antibodies that are deposited in their
eggs.
The piglets that were fed the diet containing pea protein isolate
supplemented with egg-yolk antibodies, zinc oxide, fumaric acid or
in-feed antibiotics performed as well those on the control diet
containing spray-dried porcine plasma. The porcine plasma is derived
from pig blood collected at hog slaughtering plants.
The piglets that were fed a diet with 10 percent pea protein isolate
without any of those additives had poorer weight gains than the others,
partly because they did not eat as much.
The pigs were infected with E. coli for the experiment, which led to
scours in all of them.
However, the scours lasted only three to five days in the animals fed
diets with spray dried porcine plasma or pea protein isolate
supplemented with egg-yolk antibodies, zinc oxide, fumaric acid or
in-feed antibiotics.
Those fed the pea protein isolate without the additives had severe
diarrhea beyond five days. Forty percent of them died.
Nyachoti, an assistant professor with the University of Manitoba’s
animal science department, said more work is needed to learn how
additives that alleviate diarrhea in early-weaned pigs interact. During
the university’s study, those additives were kept in separate rations.
