Study Of Lactoferrin On Growth Performance And Its Mechanism In Early Weaned Piglets

The experiment was conducted to investigate the effects of supplemental lactoferrin in weaned piglets basal diet on growth performance, apparent nutrient digestibility, serum biochemical indexes, gastrointestinal digestive enzyme, metal content of serum and excrement, to explore the optimum level of lactoferrin in the diet and determine the specific regulation of lactoferrin in piglets for providing new theoretical basis about the application of lactoferrin in the animal production industry.Ninety-six weaned piglets at21-day-old,three-line crossbred (Duroc X Landrace X Yorkshire) were assigned randomly to4treatments and each treatment had4replicates with6piglet per replicate. Each treatment was fed basal diet supplemented with0,250,500and750mg/kg lactoferrin respectively. Experimental period lasted for21days. The results showed:(1) Basal diets supplied with lactoferrin could significantly improve the daily gain (P<0.05), the difference between all the experimental groups was significant (P<0.05). Dietary adding lactoferrin had the trend of decreasing feed/gain ratio, compared with the control group had no significant difference (P>0.05) supplemented with500mg/kg lactoferrin was the best feed/gain ratio. Compared with the control group, dietary adding lactoferrin could significant reduce the diarrhea rate (P<0.05), and the difference between250mg/kg group and500mg/kg was significant (P<0.05)(2) Lactoferrin had the trend of increasing digestibility of dry matter in weaned piglets(P>0.05),and the adding group with500mg/kg lactoferrin was the best, reach to82.25%. Compared with the control group, supplemented with250mg/kg and750mg/kg lactoferrin could significantly increasing digestibility of crude ash (P<0.05), adding of500mg/kg only had the trend (P>0.05). The apparent digestibility of calcium, phosphorus had not significantly change with the adding amount of lactoferrin (P>0.05). Compared with the control group, supplemented with500mg/kg and750mg/kg lactoferrin could significantly reduce the content of Fe in the excrement (P<0.05), and had not significant difference in the reduce the content of metal Cu,Zn,Mn in the excrement (P>0.05)(3) Compared with the control group, dietary adding lactoferrin had the trend of decreasing the activity of pepsin (P>0.05), activity of pepsin of the250mg/kg supplemented group reach to94.53U/mg, increased by4.79%. Enzyme activity of pancreatic amylase and pancreatic lipase had not significant changes as the content of lacroferrin improved (P>0.05)(4) Compared with the control group, supplemented with750mg/kg could significantly reduce the content of serum urea nitrogen and total cholesterol (P<0.05),and had the trend of improve the total protein content (P>0.05).Each supplemented group could significantly improve the content of Fe in the serum (P<0.05),and had the increased trend to the content of Cu,Zn in the serum (P>0.05) supplemented with500mg/kg Lf group could significantly improve TIBC compared with the control group. Each supplemented group had no significant difference in ALT, AST, ALP and LDH in the serum (P>0.05). About the antioxidant indicators of blood, supplemented with500mg/kg Lf group was significant difference in the content of MDA, enzyme activity of GSH-PX and SOD compared with the control group.In summary, dietary adding certain dosage lactoferrin could improve growth performance, reduced the rate of diarrhea. By promoting the absorption and transport of Fe, the lactoferrin improved the micro-ecological environment in the intestinal tract, thereby enhancing the absorption of nutrients, and by increasing the Cu, Zn and other trace element content in serum to improve the antioxidation of body, so the immune function was enhanced, and the metal element content in the excrement of piglets can be reduced.