The amount of dietary protein (DP), specifically reduced DP, in weaned diets has inconsistent effects on performance and gut health of nursery pigs. The conflicting results may be due to the variability in the digestibility of protein ingredients and may differentially contribute to protein flow into the hindgut. Therefore, it is possible to formulate diets with similar DP but varying indigestible dietary protein (IDP) fraction. It has been suggested that flow of undigested protein to the hindgut has a negative impact on gut health, due to fermentation and production of harmful metabolites. Estimation of IDP in nursery diet may be a noteworthy approach to better predict negative outcomes. The present study evaluated the impact of diets formulated with low or high IDP on growth, blood parameters, diarrhea score, and protein fermentation metabolites in newly weaned pigs. Results show that feeding diets containing high IDP content negatively influenced growth performance and oxidative status, while promoting diarrhea in piglets within one week post-weaning. Results highlight the importance of reducing IDP content in diets fed to nursery pigs immediately after weaning.

Read the full article in the Journal of Animal Science.