Prebióticos e antibióticos em dietas de leitoas em fase de creche

Abstract

The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of supplementation with mannan oligosaccharides, ß-glucan and antibiotic in diets for female piglets during the nursery phase (21 to 54 days of age) on performance, morpho-histological characteristics of the intestinal mucosa and occurrence of diarrhea. A total of 368 piglets of the same strain, with average weight of 6.5 kg were distributed in a completely randomized design with four treatments (control - basal diet, without supplementation; 2 - basal diet + 1,500 g mannan oligosaccharides/t of diet; 3 - basal diet + 500 g ß-glucan/t of diet; and 4 - basal diet + 250 g colistin/t of diet) and four replications with 23 animals per experimental unit. Performance was assessed through weight gain, feed intake and feed conversion. The morpho-histological characteristics of the intestinal mucosa studied were villus height, intestinal crypt depth, villus circumference and villus height:crypt depth of duodenum, jejunum and ileum ratio. The occurrence of diarrhea was observed daily by the evaluation of fecal. The animals supplemented with the diet containing mannan oligosaccharide presented an improvement of 6.98% in weight gain; supplementation of mannan oligosaccharide induced improvement in feed conversion of 8.91 %, in relation to the treatment with additive. The treatments did not influence feed intake, incidence of diarrhea or their morpho-histological characteristics of the intestine. Mannan oligosaccharide provided the best results of weight gain and feed conversion in gilts of commercial strains in the period of 21 to 54 days of age.