Abstract Bovine milk products are commonly included in nursery pig diets to ease the transition from sow milk to solid feeds. However, bovine milk contains lower concentrations of milk oligosaccharides, naturally occurring prebiotics, than porcine milk. Among these, galacto-oligosaccharides (GOS) and 2’-fucosyllactose (FL) are known to support intestinal development and health. Therefore, supplementing diets with GOS and FL may improve intestinal health and growth performance of nursery pigs. This study evaluated the effects of GOS, FL, and their potential additive effects, at inclusion rates mimicking porcine milk, on intestinal health and growth performance of nursery pigs. Thirty-two pigs (6.8 ± 0.2 kg body weight) weaned at 3 weeks-of-age were allotted into 4 dietary treatments based on a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement with GOS (0.0 or 1.5%) and FL (0.0 or 0.2%) as factors. Diets were fed for 21 d in 2 phases. On d 21, pigs were euthanized for collection of jejunal mucosa and tissue samples. Data were analyzed using the PROC MIXED of SAS 9.4 and orthogonal contrasts were used to evaluate the effects of GOS, FL, and their combination (interaction). The GOS did not affect the alpha diversity indices, whereas FL tended to reduce the Shannon and Simpson indices (P = 0.083 and 0.093, respectively). These indices reduced (P 0.05) by FL when GOS was not supplemented, whereas they were unaffected by FL with GOS supplementation. The GOS tended to decrease (P = 0.095) absolute abundance, whereas FL tended to increase relative and absolute abundance (P = 0.097 and 0.084, respectively) of Helicobacteraceae. The FL increased (P 0.05) and tended to increase (P = 0.082) the relative and absolute abundance of Helicobacteraceae without GOS, respectively, whereas they were unaffected by FL with GOS. The GOS tended to increase (P = 0.087), whereas FL decreased (P 0.05) expression of Toll-like receptor 2 in the jejunum. The FL increased (P 0.05) the expression of Toll-like receptor 4. The GOS increased (P 0.05) expression of nucleotide binding oligomerization domain containing 1. The GOS did not affect, whereas FL tended to increase (P = 0.089) jejunal villus height. Villus height increased (P 0.05) by FL with GOS supplementation, whereas it was unaffected by FL without GOS supplementation. The GOS tended to increase (P = 0.054) average daily gain. The GOS increased (P 0.05) average daily feed intake, whereas FL had no effect. Feed intake increased (P 0.05) by FL with GOS supplementation, whereas it was unaffected by FL without GOS supplementation. Based on the results, it is concluded that GOS and FL exerted individual effects, however, the combination of GOS and FL may better support intestinal health and growth performance of nursery pigs.
Gormley et al. (Wed,) studied this question.