NEWS ▶▶▶ Field pea can replace soybean meal diets
Field pea could be used as an alternative starch and protein source for swine. A recent study by researchers from Canada and supported by Evonik showed that weaned pigs fed 400g field pea/kg diet instead of soybean meal could maintain growth performance. The study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Animal Feed Science and Technology. The study used 236 pigs, weaned at 20 days of age. The animals were fed one of five diets starting two weeks post-weaning for three weeks, including 400g/kg raw field pea, 400g/ kg cold-pelleted field pea, 400g/kg steam-pel- leted field pea, 400g/kg extruded field pea and 300g soybean meal and 100g wheat grain. The average daily gain did not differ between the soybean meal diet and field pea diets, nor did it differ among field pea treatments. The scien- tists found that feed efficiency was lower for pigs fed field pea diets than for pigs fed the soybean meal diet, but it did not differ among field pea treatments. The body weight of pigs fed raw, cold-pelleted, steam-pelleted, extrud- ed field pea and soybean meal diets were 21.0,
Pigs identify voice as part of humans
21.1, 21.3, 21.4 and 21.7 kg respectively. The researchers concluded that final body weight was not affected by feeding or processing of field pea. To conclude, the researchers wrote, “Weaned pigs fed 400g field pea/kg diet in substitution of soybean meal could maintain growth performance. Larger average daily feed intake for field pea diets than soybean meal di- ets indicated that pigs compensated for the re- duced energy value of field pea diets. Raw field pea can be included in late nursery diets with- out thermal treatment to replace 300g soy- bean meal and 100g wheat grain/kg diet.”
How does C. perfringens kill piglets?
Why do newborn piglets sometimes die in pain from an infection with Clostridium perfrin- gens? A team from the University of Bern in- vestigated the role of C. perfringens and how it can cause fatal intestinal bleeding. The results were published recently in the peer-reviewed journal Cell Host & Microbe. The university’s Institute of Animal Pathology has been researching intestinal infections in pigs caused by C. perfringens. About ten years ago, the group was able to demonstrate that the beta toxin produced by the bacteria kills vascular cells and thus causes bleeding in the piglet’s intestine. Until now, however, it was unclear why the toxin attacked these cells and not others.
Julia Bruggisser, biochemist and doctoral stu- dent at the institute, succeeded in solving the puzzle of this mechanism in an interdiscipli- nary collaboration between three faculties. Around five years ago, Bruggisser’s colleague Marianne Wyder came across a molecule called CD31, located on the surface of various cells,
that plays a central role in intestinal bleeding in piglets. The actual role of the CD31 molecule is to regulate the interaction between inflam- matory cells and the blood vessels. It predomi- nantly occurs on cells located on the inside of blood vessels. During experiments, it was not- ed that CD31 and the beta toxin are distribut- ed almost identically on these cells. Bruggisser discovered that the toxin released by the bacteria in the intestine attaches to the CD31. Since the beta toxin numbers among the pore-forming toxins, it perforates the cell membrane and kills the endothelial cells. That results in damage to the vessels and bleeding in the intestine. The discovery makes it possible to develop better vaccines in order to prevent the fatal disease in pigs. Professor Horst Posthaus DVM said, “We also want to investigate whether the attachment of beta toxin to CD31 on the en- dothelial cells also allows for the development of new forms of therapy, for vascular disease in humans, for example.”
Pigs identify the human voice as part of a hu- man being present. The animals responded differently to human presence when no voice was broadcast. That was the result of research carried out by the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Envi- ronment (INRAE). The researchers studied the behaviour of 90 weaned female piglets divided into three treatments: human presence with voice broadcast from a speaker (A); human presence without voice (B); and a control group (C). The scientists then carried out two tests. In test 1, the scientists broadcast the voice for the piglets in group A, and background noise was broadcast for the others. In this test, pig- lets from group A and B investigated the ex- perimenter earlier and more often than in group C. The piglets in group A moved sooner in the pen than in group C. For test 2, only the background noise was broadcast, including for the piglets in group A. In this test, the piglets expressed more stress reactions; their latency to move was longer compared to the others. The piglets in group A also had more physical and vocal interac- tions: they stayed in the experiment area longer than piglets in group B and group C and grunted more. The researchers concluded that broadcasting a human voice did not modify the pig re- sponse to human presence and handling in auditory conditions similar to the interaction sessions. However, not broadcasting a human voice induced stress responses and increased interactive behaviour, suggesting that piglets identify a voice as part of the experimenter’s necessary properties.
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▶PIG PROGRESS | Volume 36, No. 5, 2020 33
PHOTO: MICHEL ZOETER
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