Effect Of Dietary Allicin On Growth Performance In Weaning Pigs

To study the effect of allicin on the growth of weaning piglets (Duroc×Landrace×Large Yorkshire),84 weaning piglets,which average weight was 5.6kg at 21d of age,were randomly assigned to 3 groups,every group containing 4 replicates with 7 piglets per replicate(the same proportion of male to female).They were fed with different feeds:groupⅠ(control group):basal diet,groupⅡ(test group):basal diet+0.01%allicin,groupⅢ(antibiotic group):basal diet+0.07%antibiotic, The experiment was conducted for 21 days and production performance of piglets, diarrhea,serum biochemical indices,serum hormone levels were determined.Six piglets of boar have been selected to investigate the effect of allicin on the nutrition digestibility using the test design of 2×3×3 Latin square.The results showed that:1) Added allicin can improve growth performance of weaning piglets and decrease their diarrhea ratio,but didn't have significant difference between the effects of antibiotic and it.In 21 days after weaning,compared with the control group,the average daily gain(ADG) of piglets of allicin group were increased by 14.4%(P＜0.05),the feed/gain by 16.8%(P＜0.01);there were no significant difference between allicin group and antibiotic group.The diarrhea ratio of allicin group and antibiotic group were 8.93%and 7.84%,which were lower than control group by 45.6%and 52.2%, respectively.2) Compared with control group,allicin improved apparent digestibility of calcium significantly(P＜0.05) and there was also the same trend of improving it for total energy and phosphorus.It was not significantly different for nutrition apparent digestibility between allicin group and antibiotic group(P＞0.05).3) Allicin not only raised serum alkaline phosphates activity(ALP),but also increased serum LDL(low density lipoprotein),CHO(cholesterin),GLU(glucose), FT3(free Liothyronine),FT4(free thyroxine),IGF-1(insulin-like growth factor 1), GH(growth hormone) content and FT3/FT4,while decreased SUN(serum urea nitrogen) content.Serum LDL,CHO,and GLU content of allicin group were higher than that of control group by 23.9%,38.1%(P＜0.05),11.4%respectively at the seven day after weaning,and by 14.7%(P＜0.05),15.6%,12.0%at fourteenth day.After weaning,serum SUN content heightened,which of allicin group and antibiotic group was lower than that of control group;serum ALP activity of every group have trend to increasing,and the bigger ADG was,the higher the activity was.FT3,IGF-1 content and FT3/FT4 of allicin group were significantly higher than control group(P＜0.05).In the whole experiment,there was no significant difference for any index between allicin group and antibiotic group.As a conclusion,addition of allicin in diet can adjust growth hormone levels, improve piglets function of digestion and metabolism,release stess,decrease their diarrhea ratio and promote growth of weaning piglets.