Winning the weaning battle – butyrates for optimal gut health in piglets

The commercial trial was designed with:

• 240 weaned piglets, 23 days old and weighing 6.7 kg.
• 120 pigs were allocated to the control group and 120 to the Encapsulated Butyrate Slow Release (EBSR).
• Butyrate was incorporated into pre-starter 1 and 2 diets, fed for 7 days each, as specified in Table 1.
• Pigs were weighed, and feed consumption was recorded at the end of each phase.

Table 1: Inclusion of EBSR on the different diets

During the pre-starter 1 phase, piglets in the EBSR group showed remarkable performance enhancements:

• Average Daily Gain (ADG) surged to 235g/d compared to 192g/d in the control group (p<0.01) as seen in Figure 1
• Average Daily Feed Intake (ADFI) increased to 297g/d from 278g/d (p<0.05) as seen in Figure 2
• Feed Conversion Rate (FCR) improved to 1.28 EBSR from 1.47 in the control group (p<0.01) as seen in Figure 3
• Piglets in the EBSR group were significantly heavier at the end of the phase, weighing 8.42 kg versus 8.12 kg (p<0.01).

In the pre-starter 2 phase, the EBSR group continued to outperform with an ADG of 301 g/d versus 276 g/d (p<0.05) and an ADFI of 400 g/d versus 383 g/d (p<0.05), as seen in Figure 4. 

At a standardized weight of 8.42 kg following pre-starter 1. The control group will require 2.52 kg of feed, whereas the EBSR group achieved the same weight with 2.2 kg, indicating a 0.32 kg feed reduction per piglet. Considering the higher cost of initial diets in production cycles, these findings suggest substantial cost savings for farmers, even though they are the less-used diets, whilst increasing performance and efficiency.