22 Evaluation of intestinal health in nursery pigs

Abstract

In modern pig farming and production, nursing piglets are weaned early typically ranging from 14 to 28 day of age. Early weaning benefits production efficiency of sows by increasing the number of piglets produced per sow. Early weaned pigs, however, could face intestinal challenges from sudden changes in diets with complex sources, anti-nutritional compounds, and potential toxins. Intestinal challenges would impair growth performance of pigs and thus overall farm productivity. Understanding how to evaluate intestinal health status of nursery pigs is an important step for research to enhance intestinal health of nursery pigs. Intestinal challenges caused by anti-nutritional compounds and toxins in feeds can bring immune reaction to mucosal tissue of the small intestine. Intestinal immune reaction would include inflammatory responses and secretion of antibodies. Inflammation would cause increased oxidative stress to mucosal tissues causing cell death and thus damaging integrity of mucosal epithelium and villi. All these would in turn cause problems with intestinal barrier functions. Evaluation of intestinal health should include investigation of all these steps. Quantification of proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines, antibodies, and oxidative damage markers could be an important start to check the intestinal health status. Evaluation of villus structure and crypt cell proliferation provides data related to the outcomes of initial immune reaction. Finally, intestinal barrier functions can be measured by quantification of tight junction proteins or indirectly by exogenous markers. Systemic measurements of intestinal health would provide essential tools for research to enhance intestinal health of nursery pigs. The purpose of this talk is to provide research examples on the evaluation of intestinal health in nursery pigs.