VETINDEX

Periódicos Brasileiros em Medicina Veterinária e Zootecnia

p. 1-9

Efeitos do fornecimento oral de suplementos nutricionais na sobrevivência e crescimento de leitões de baixo peso ao nascer

Kummer, Anderson DouglasBaroncello, EdegarMoreira, Letícia PinheiroBernardi, Mari LourdesBortolozzo, Fernando PandolfoWentz, Ivo

Background: High mortality is observed in piglets of low birth weight mainly due to their low body reserves and low colostrum consumption. Although nutritional supplements can be offered to these piglets in order to increase their survival and growth performance, the results concerning the beneficial effects of oral nutritional supplementation are still controversial. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of oral supply of nutritional supplements to low birth weight neonates, in the first hours of life, on their colostrum consumption, serum immunoglobulin G, rectal temperature, weight gain and mortality.Materials, Methods & Results: At birth, piglets with birth weight ranging from 794 to 1315 g were selected and randomly distributed among four treatments according to the nutritional supplement provided: Control (n = 305), Lianol (n = 306), Biostart (n = 306) and Lianol+Biostart (n = 305). At the first 24.3 ± 0.04 h after birth piglets remained with their biological mother and after that they were transferred to foster dams forming litters of 12 piglets, which were equally distributed among treatments (3 piglets of each treatment). At 24 h after birth, rectal temperature was measured (n = 143, n = 147, n = 152 and n = 144 piglets from Control, Lianol, Biostart, Lianol+Biostart groups, respectively), blood was collected to measure serum immunoglobulin G (21 animals per treatment) and all alive piglets were weighed to estimate the colostrum consumption. The mortality was recorded daily and necropsy was performed to determine the cause of death. The weight was measured at birth, at 24 h, 7 and 20 days after birth. The supplementation had no effect (P > 0.05) on rectal temperature at 24 h (38.8 ± 0.02ºC), colostrum consumption (274.3 ± 2.8 g) and serum IgG (24.2 ± 0.98 mg/mL).[...](AU)

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