Sub-clinical disease results in reduced growth and less efficient use of nutrients. With the elimination of in-feed antibiotics for growth promotion it is increasingly important to understand the interaction between nutrition and health and nutrient requirements during disease challenge events. This project set out to more fully understand the interaction between dietary feedstuffs and immune status on nutrient requirements and utilization for body protein deposition, aiding in the development of effective techniques and protocols to reduce the negative effects of disease/stress on pig performance, as well as nutrition alternatives to antibiotics. Results suggest that supplemental threonine was able to mitigate the effects of Salmonella challenge and dietary fibre alone, but was only partially able to improve growth performance when both are present. Additional threonine is required in pigs fed high fibre diets and subjected to an enteric pathogen challenge.
DF_Threonine_Robustness (view pdf)
