Feed & Additive Magazine Issue 2 March 2021

ARTICLE 78 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE March 2021 that appear in the amniotic fluid and mother's milk, and thus reduce neophobia for similarly flavored food types at weaning (Oostindjer, 2010). Flavor learning could be beneficial for piglets, which after the rather abrupt weaning in pig husbandry frequently show a period of anorexia, reduced health, and stress-induced behaviors. To validate their hypothesis, this research team set up the following experiment: Sows were offered anise-fla- vored (F) or control (C) food during late gestation. Pig- lets were cross-fostered after birth, with each sow foster- ing 5 piglets from an F sow and 5 from a C sow. During lactation, sows were offered F or C food, resulting in FF, CF, FC and CC piglets. Piglets were weaned on day 25 and were given both control and flavored food for two weeks using a double food choice approach. Figure 2 summarizes some of the findings of the re- search work. This is of course not a field evaluation or ‘real-life’ but these results highlight some interesting opportunities: Scientists concluded that exposing pig- lets prenatally to anise flavor from the maternal diet resulted in a higher food intake in the first days after weaning, a higher growth postweaning and a lower prevalence of stress-related behaviors and diarrhea. AN OPTIMAL START AT WEANING IS THE BASISFORASUCCESSFULPIGPRODUCTION Taken together, these experiments support the fact that supplementation of such new technologies can mit- igate post-weaning stress of the young piglets and, in the meantime, improve piglets’ performance. Such technol- ogy shows consistent efficacy to stimulate feed intake, reduce gut inflammation and support gut maturation to secure long-term performance. Obviously, these con- cepts are stable and easy to use in feed, and compliant with the local regulatory environment, for instance re- garding ingredients authorized for piglets or sow. More importantly, the technical benefits are converted into return of investment and support the profitability of farms, indicating that these concepts represent sustain- able alternatives for the future of pig farming. About Dr. Stephanie Ladirat Dr. Stephanie Ladirat is the technology director at NUQO. She obtained her MSc degree in Food Technology with a specialization in Food Ingredient and Functionality and her PhD degree in Food Chemistry from Wageningen University (The Netherlands). During her PhD thesis, she studied in depth the human gut microbiota composition and its modulation upon prebiotic supplementation and/or antibi- otic treatments. From 2014 till 2020, she worked at Cargill Animal Nutrition, first as technology lead for gut health additives and, then, as swine portfolio manager. She provided global technical product support for a broad range of products (phytogenics, organic acids, short and medium chain fatty acids, probiotics) and trained technical and sales teams. She most recently managed R&D projects and developped innovative feed additive solutions to answer specific customer needs related to animal gut health and performance. Figure 2 : Adapted from Oostindjer, 2010 (Prenatal flavor exposure affects growth, health and behavior of newly weaned piglets) (4 treatments : animals exposed to anise both pre- and postnatally (FF), prenatally (FC), postnatally (CF), or never (CC)) Play behavior during the 14-d postweaning, in % of scans within the observations Total number of days during the 14-d postweaning period that diarrhoea was observed Body weight during the first 14 days postweaning, for the 4 different treatments