Effects of dietary supplementation of Enterococcus faecium on growth performance, intestinal morphology, and selected microbial populations of piglets

• Published in: Livestock science 2018-04, Vol.210, p.111-117
• Main Authors: Xie, Y.H., Zhang, C.Y., Wang, L.X., Shang, Q.H., Zhang, G.G., Yang, W.R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: E. faecium; Growth performance; Intestinal morphology; Piglets; Selected microbial populations
• ISSN: 1871-1413; 1878-0490
• DOI: 10.1016/j.livsci.2018.02.010

The objective of the study was to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation of E. faecium on growth performance and intestinal health of 35- to 70-d-old piglets. Two hundred fifty-five 35-d-old crossbred (Duroc × Landrace × Large White) piglets were randomly assigned to 5 treatments with 3 replicates of 17 pigs per pen. The treatments were basal diet (control), basal diet supplemented with antibiotics (8 mg flavomycin and 90 mg arsanilic acid/kg), and basal diet supplemented with E. faecium preparation (2 × 1010 cfu E. faecium/g) at the dose of 100, 300, and 500 mg/kg diet. The average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI), gain to feed ratio (G:F), and diarrhea index were determined during the entire experimental period. At the end of the experiment, 6 pigs from each treatment (2 per pen) were euthanized, and the gastrointestinal pH, small intestine morphological traits, and selected intestinal microbiota populations were determined. The ADG and ADFI tended to be improved with the increasing doses of supplemented E. faecium or the added antibiotics (P = 0.053 and 0.072, respectively), while G:F was linearly or quadratically improved (P