Diets for nursery pigs use highly digestible feedstuffs, such as animal protein supplements and enzyme-treated soybean meal (SBM) to help pigs adapt to solid diets, but their use can be limited by their high cost. SBM is widely used as a cost-effective protein supplement with a balanced amino acid profile. However, SBM contains anti-nutritional compounds, including phytate and β-mannan, which can negatively affect the intestinal health and growth of nursery pigs. Beta-mannan, including β-galactomannan in SBM, induces immune responses in the small intestine due to its similarity to structures on the surface of pathogenic microbes and reduces ileal digestibility of nutrients and growth performance. Beta-mannanase targeting β-mannan in SBM could mitigate these negative impacts on the intestinal health and growth of pigs. This study aimed to investigate the impacts of low-cost formulated diets (LCD) and the effects of β-mannanase on intestinal health and growth performance of nursery pigs fed LCD, with high phytase included in all diets to mitigate the impacts of phytate. The LCD negatively affected jejunal interleukin-8, apparent ileal digestibility of ether extract, and growth performance of nursery pigs, whereas β-mannanase supplementation in LCD mitigated these negative impacts by decreasing jejunal interleukin-6 and improving the apparent ileal digestibility of neutral detergent fiber and ether extract, and growth performance. In conclusion, the LCD had negative impacts on the intestinal health and growth performance of nursery pigs, whereas β-mannanase supplementation in LCD mitigated these negative impacts.

Read the full article in the Journal of Animal Science.