Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences (May 2020)

Effect of increasing levels of rice distillers’ by-product on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood profile and colonic microbiota of weaned piglets

  • Oanh Nguyen Cong,
  • Bernard Taminiau,
  • Dang Pham Kim,
  • Georges Daube,
  • Giap Nguyen Van,
  • Jérôme Bindelle,
  • Papa Abdulaye Fall,
  • Ton Vu Dinh,
  • Jean-Luc Hornick

DOI
https://doi.org/10.5713/ajas.19.0278
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 33, no. 5
pp. 788 – 801

Abstract

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Objective This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of diets containing different wet rice distillers’ by-product (RDP) levels on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood profiles and gut microbiome of weaned piglets. Methods A total of 48 weaned castrated male crossbred pigs, initial body weight 7.54±0.97 kg, and age about 4 wks, were used in this experiment. The piglets were randomly allocated into three iso-nitrogenous diet groups that were fed either a control diet, a diet with 15% RDP, or a diet with 30% RDP for a total of 35 days. Chromium oxide was used for apparent digestibility measurements. On d 14 and d 35, half of the piglets were randomly selected for hemato-biochemical and gut microbiota evaluations. Results Increasing inclusion levels of RDP tended to linearly increase (p≤0.07) average daily gain on d 14 and d 35, and decreased (p = 0.08) feed conversion ratio on d 35. Empty stomach weight increased (p = 0.03) on d 35 while digestibility of diet components decreased. Serum globulin concentration decreased on d 14 (p = 0.003) and red blood cell count tended to decrease (p = 0.06) on d 35, parallel to increase RDP levels. Gene amplicon profiling of 16S rRNA revealed that the colonic microbiota composition of weaned pigs changed by inclusion of RDP over the period. On d 14, decreased proportions of Lachnospiraceae_ge, Ruminococcaceae_ge, Ruminococcaceae_UCG-005, and Bacteroidales_ge, and increased proportions of Prevotellaceae_ge, Prevotella_2, and Prevotella_9 were found with inclusion of RDP, whereas opposite effect was found on d 35. Additionally, the proportion of Lachnospiraceae_ge, Ruminococcaceae_ge, Ruminococcaceae_UCG-005, and Bacteroidales_ge in RDP diets decreased over periods in control diet but increased largely in diet with 30% RDP. Conclusion These results indicate that RDP in a favorable way modulate gastrointestinal microbiota composition and improve piglet performance despite a negative impact on digestibility of lipids and gross energy.

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