Abstract This study was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary medium-chain fatty acid (MCFA) levels on growth performance, fecal score, gut permeability, energy status, and apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of weaning pigs. At weaning, a total of 100 pigs 18.4 ± 1.8 d of age; initial body weight (BW) of 5.72 ± 1.4 kg were allotted to 5 treatments in 5 replicates with 4 pigs per pen for a 35-d feeding trial. Treatments were dietary MCFA levels of 0.0, 0.2, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5% for d 0-21 postweaning (Phase 1) replacing soybean oil and a common nursery diet was fed to all pigs for d 21-35 postweaning (Phase 2). With increasing dietary MCFA levels, quadratic increases were observed in BW (P ≤ 0.05), average daily gain (ADG; P ≤ 0.05), and average daily feed intake (ADFI; P = 0.08, tendency) in d 0-14 postweaning, peaking at the 0.5% MCFA level. The BW from d 21 to 35 postweaning and ADG in d 0-21 and 21-35 postweaning increased linearly with increasing MCFA levels (P ≤ 0.05), while linear and quadratic increases were observed in overall ADG (P ≤ 0.05), with the greatest value observed at the 1.0% MCFA level. The ADFI increased linearly (P ≤ 0.05) with increasing MCFA levels in d 21-35 postweaning and overall period, while gain-to-feed ratio was not different in each phase and overall period. Fecal score was not affected in the overall period (P 0.21). The ATTD of gross energy (P ≤ 0.05), dry matter (P = 0.10, tendency) and crude protein (P = 0.07, tendency) increased linearly with increasing MCFA levels. At d 7 postweaning, plasma β-hydroxybutyrate levels decreased linearly (P = 0.06, tendency) with increasing MCFA levels, while plasma free fatty acid levels showed a quadratic response (P = 0.06, tendency) with the lowest levels at the 0.5% MCFA level. Increasing MCFA levels decreased plasma diamine oxidase levels at d 7 postweaning (P = 0.06, tendency), while showing quadratic decreases in plasma d-lactate levels at d 7 (P ≤ 0.05) and 21 (P = 0.10, tendency) postweaning, with lower values observed at the 0.2-1.0% MCFA levels compared to the 0.0% MCFA level. In conclusion, increasing dietary MCFA levels up to 1.0% enhanced overall growth rate and feed intake, energy and protein digestibility in nursery pigs, improved energy status by lowering plasma β-hydroxybutyrate and free fatty acid levels, and reduced gut permeability in the early nursery period.
Torres et al. (Wed,) studied this question.
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