Effect of preventive or curative supplementation with a blend of functional amino acids on the performance and economic viability of growing pigs under sanitary challenge

• Grant number: 23/16504-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships abroad - Research Internship - Doctorate (Direct)
• Start date: April 02, 2024
• End date: April 01, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Agronomical Sciences - Animal Husbandry - Animal Nutrition and Feeding
• Principal Investigator: Luciano Hauschild
• Grantee: Ismael França
• Supervisor: Martin Nyachoti
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências Agrárias e Veterinárias (FCAV). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Jaboticabal. Jaboticabal , SP, Brazil
• Institution abroad: University of Manitoba, Canada
• Associated to the scholarship: 23/08305-7 - Effect of preventive or curative dietary supplementation with functional amino acids on growing pigs under sanitary challenge, BP.DD

Abstract

The activation of the immune system demands a greater supply of amino acids (AA), whether ingested through diet or metabolized from muscle tissue. Challenging hygienic-sanitary conditions and stressful factors result in recurrent induction of the immune response, which can be considered one of the main aspects contributing to the variation in pig performance, especially in the initial growth phase. In this context, amino acid-based nutritional strategies have been studied as nutritional tools capable of attenuating the performance reduction in pigs under sanitary challenge. Therefore, this project aims to deepen the performance trial proposed previously to FAPESP (Process nº 2020/15797-5) by conducting different statistical analysis approaches of experiment data as well as performing economic feasibility analysis of evaluated strategies, interpreting and discussing results in collaboration with an international research group. In the project initially presented to FAPESP, we aimed to characterize the productive performance and physiological and metabolic responses of growing pigs under sanitary challenge. Now, this international collaboration project with the University of Manitoba further explores the economic feasibility of the studied nutritional strategies. Growing entire male pigs were fed diets supplemented with Trp, Thr, and Met [120% of NRC (2012)] requirements and raised under a sanitary challenge (inoculation of Salmonella Typhimurium + poor housing condition + mixing of pigs). Understanding the economic feasibility is important so that the proposed strategy can be applied in different commercial production systems. The search for new nutritional strategies to increase nutrient utilization efficiency of pigs in challenging environments is of great productive, economic, and environmental importance. In addition, the internship period will allow the doctoral student to interact with an internationally recognized research group specialized in this area of study, apply this knowledge to UNESP-FCAV, and improve his professional skills