ISSUE FOCUS 32 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE November 2024 An early creep feed, such as Babito®, has been specially designed to train piglets to eat and to stimulate exploratory behavior. Babito® sticks to the piglet’s nose and contains specific corn flakes, helping piglets discover the feed in a playful manner. Moreover, thanks to its unique composition, this feed also helps develop the gut structure and stimulates enzyme secretion to digest plant-based raw materials. In this way, it eases the transition to a weaning diet and reduces concomitant stress. Moreover, Babito® is enriched with START+, a concept based on specific components that mimic the prebiotic oligosaccharides present in the colostrum of sows. Several trials have demonstrated the effectiveness of START+ on the gut microbiome, the gut structure, and the gut barrier function (Figure 1). MANAGING THE POST-WEANING PERIOD The weaning process not only entails a nutritional transition but an environmental one as well. Piglets are separated from the sow and move to a new environment that has different installations, temperature and air quality. These factors also contribute to increasing the piglets’ stress level, which reduces their level of immunity and makes them more vulnerable to diseases. So, in this stage too, reducing stress factors around weaning is key to maintaining the functionality of the GIT, the commensal microbiome, and a low epithelial permeability. This again demands a multi-factorial approach, focused on management and nutrition around weaning. The Aim For Zero Concept has been developed specifically for this purpose. It is based on a diet formulated to meet the piglets’ nutritional needs and to avoid digestive disorders during the post-weaning period. Moreover, to preserve gut integrity, certain functional feed ingredients are added specifically to: • Fortify gut barrier integrity • Kill incoming pathogens • Capture existing pathogens • Protect against endotoxins In this way, the concept is not only a valid alternative to zinc oxide, but it also enables the reduction of the use of antibiotics. Figure 2 shows that the application of the Aim For Zero Concept has proven to be very beneficial for gut integrity (Figure 2). No stress * * Control Percentage Impact of Start+ on epithelial integrity Start+ 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 Stress Figure 1. Gut barrier function, measured as TEER (TransEpithelial Electrical Resistance) after 4 hours on a Caco2 cell line with or without stressor. (Relative value compared to T0h = 100%) *significant difference, P < 0.05
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