Strategy for Local Plant-Based Material Valorisation to Higher-Value Feed Stock for Piglets

Sarunas Badaras; Modestas Ruzauskas; Romas Gruzauskas; Egle Zokaityte; Vytaute Starkute; Ernestas Mockus; Jolita Klementaviciute; Vadims Bartkevics; Laurynas Vadopalas; Dovile Klupsaite; Agila Dauksiene; Gintare Zokaityte; Ruta Mickiene; Elena Bartkiene

doi:10.3390/ani12091092

Strategy for Local Plant-Based Material Valorisation to Higher-Value Feed Stock for Piglets

Animals (Basel). 2022 Apr 22;12(9):1092. doi: 10.3390/ani12091092.

Authors

Sarunas Badaras¹, Modestas Ruzauskas^{2

3}, Romas Gruzauskas⁴, Egle Zokaityte^{1

5}, Vytaute Starkute^{1

5}, Ernestas Mockus¹, Jolita Klementaviciute¹, Vadims Bartkevics⁶, Laurynas Vadopalas¹, Dovile Klupsaite¹, Agila Dauksiene^{1

3}, Gintare Zokaityte¹, Ruta Mickiene⁷, Elena Bartkiene^{1

5}

Affiliations

¹ Institute of Animal Rearing Technologies, Faculty of Animal Sciences, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Mickeviciaus Str. 9, LT-44307 Kaunas, Lithuania.
² Institute of Microbiology and Virology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Mickeviciaus Str. 9, LT-44307 Kaunas, Lithuania.
³ Department of Anatomy and Physiology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Mickeviciaus Str. 9, LT-44307 Kaunas, Lithuania.
⁴ Department of Food Science and Technology, Kaunas University of Technology, Radvilenu Rd. 19, LT-50254 Kaunas, Lithuania.
⁵ Department of Food Safety and Quality, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, Mickeviciaus Str. 9, LT-44307 Kaunas, Lithuania.
⁶ Institute of Food Safety, Animal Health and Environment BIOR, Lejupes ilea 3, LV-1076 Riga, Latvia.
⁷ Instrumental Analysis Open Access Centre, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Vytautas Magnus University, Vileikos 8, LT-44404 Kaunas, Lithuania.

Abstract

In this study, a 41-day experiment was conducted using 300 (21-day-old) Large White/Norwegian Landrace piglets (100 piglets in each group). Three dietary treatments were compared: (i) a basal diet (C-I), (ii) a basal diet with the addition of extruded-fermented wheat bran (W_{ex130/screwspeed25Lpa}) (TG-II), and (iii) a basal diet with the addition of dried sugar beet pulp (TG-III). Analyses of piglets' blood parameters, faecal microbial and physico-chemical characteristics, and piglets' growth performance were performed. It was found that the extrusion and fermentation combination led to an additional functional value of W_{ex130/screwspeed25Lpa}, which showed desirable antimicrobial and antifungal properties in vitro (inhibited 5 out of 10 tested pathogenic strains and 3 out of 11 tested fungi). Both treatments reduced total enterobacteria and increased lactic acid bacteria counts in piglets' faeces. The consistency of the piglets' faeces (in all three groups) was within a physiological range throughout the whole experiment. Strong positive correlations were found between the LAB count in piglets' faeces and butanoic acid; butanoic acid, 3-methyl-; butyric acid (2-methyl-); pentanoic acid. The treatment groups obtained a significantly higher body weight gain and average daily gain. Finally, substituting the piglets' diet with W_{ex130/screwspeed25Lpa} and sugar beet pulp led to favourable changes in micro-organism populations in the piglets' faeces as well as better growth performance.

Keywords: extrusion; fermentation; microbiota; piglets; sugar beet pulp; wheat bran.