TRENDING FILE FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE May 2022 53 The stress of weaning generally induces piglets anorexia in the first days right after the suckling period. As a direct consequence of this reduced feed intake, the supply of nutrients (incl. zinc) becomes limited in a very critical period of the young animals development. Thus, the risk of transitory sub-clinical zinc deficiency is a real issue that can be compensated by very high dietary Zn supplementations. Pharmacological dosage of ZnO can correct sub-optimal blood zinc levels below 1-2 mg/L. Growth improvement are generally observed following this repletion of the Zn circulating pool by ZnO. Once minimum daily ingestion of zinc is naturally achieved by piglets, then blood Zn concentration is tightly regulated and is stabilised thanks to piglets homoeostatic balance. When blood Zn level is at the plateau, the effect of ZnO supplementation on body weight gain is less obvious but is still observed. Pharmacological dosage of zinc oxide has the potential to restore Zn status of the weaned piglet. A POTENTIATED ZINC SOURCE AT PIGLETS RESCUE! HiZox® is a potentiated zinc source for piglets manufactured in Europe that shares common points with pharmacological zinc oxide. Indeed, being a very bioavailable source of Zn, its supplementation can restore piglets Zn blood concentration and compensate the risk of transitory deficiency during the critical phase of weaning even when used at low and nutritional dosage. Additionally, this additive presents a particular chemical and physical structure obtained with a unique patented process and that provides a powerful antibacterial effect, again at low dosage, to control pathogenic diarrhea. This nutritional solution used for 10 years in Europe and Asia has demonstrated its efficacy in a large variety of situations, as long as it is well accompanied with proper management and biosecurity. Figure 3: Correlation between blood Zn levels and average daily gain of weaned piglets fed pharmacological levels of ZnO. First point of each line is a negative control (without ZnO or low dietary Zn concentration) and the last point is pharmacological dosage.
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