PSI-7 - Effects of creep feed and microencapsulated blend of essential oil supplementation on lactation and nursery performance in pigs

Abstract: Creep feeding strategies in piglets are designed to ease the transition from sow’s milk to dry feed. Essential oils have gained attention due to their antimicrobial and immunomodulatory effects as well as improved growth performance and feed palatability in pigs. This study evaluated the effects of supplementation of a blend of microencapsulated essential oils and a prebiotic (EOP) in creep feed and two levels during the nursery. Seven days before weaning, litters were allotted by sow parity (avg. 2.8), genetics, weaning age (avg. 20.3 d), number of pigs per litter (avg. 11.9), and litter weight (avg. 50.2 kg) and assigned to one of two creep feeding treatments: 1) Basal Diet (NC, n=35) or 2) Basal Diet+0.10% EOP (A, n=17). Post-weaning, pigs were blocked by weaning weight within creep feed group and randomly allotted to a nursery treatment. Pigs from the NC creep feed were allotted to one of four nursery dietary treatments: 1) Basal diet (NC-NC), 2) Basal diet+55 ppm Carbadox (NC-PC), 3) Basal diet+0.10% EOP (NC-A), or 4) Basal diet+0.16% EOP (NC-B). Pigs from the A creep feed group were allotted to one of two treatments: 5) Basal diet+0.10% EOP (A-A), or 6) Basal diet+0.16% EOP (A-B). Each treatment had 10 pens/treatment with 8 or 9 pigs/pen evenly distributed within block. Fecal samples were collected from a subset of piglets and sows during lactation and pigs post-weaning for future microbiome analysis. Creep feed treatment had no effect on intake or growth performance of piglets during lactation. During week 1 of the nursery, NC creep feed groups had greater G:F than A creep feed groups (P=0.031). There were interactions between creep feed and nursery feed EOP with pigs fed treatments NC-B and A-A having higher ADFI week 2 (P=0.029) and week 4 (P=0.094) and ADG week 2 (P=0.029) than NC-A and A-B, respectively. Pigs fed NC-PC had greater ADG week 4 (P=0.029), week 5 (P=0.030), and overall, d0-34, (P=0.071) with greater G:F week 3 (P=0.034) and d0-34 (P=0.040) than pigs fed NC-NC. For the overall 34-day nursery period, there was no effect of treatment on ADFI. ADG was greater for NC-PC than NC-A, A-A, and A-B, with NC-NC and NC-B being intermediate but not different (P< 0.05). Overall, NC-PC had greater ADG (P=0.003) than the average of all nursery EOP-supplemented groups, however, the EOP treatments had similar G:F to NC-PC and numerically higher G:F than the NC-NC fed pigs. While NC-PC had the best growth performance, pigs receiving NC creep feed followed by high EOP or low creep feed dose of EOP followed by a low dose of EOP performed best of the EOP supplementations. Future research should explore varying EOP levels and durations to optimize piglet performance.