The dietary protein content slightly affects the body temperature of growing pigs exposed to heat stress

Heat stress (HS) increases body temperature (BT) and reduces feed intake in pigs. Increasing the dietary protein content may correct the reduced amino acid intake provoked by HS, but it may further increase BT. The effect of dietary protein level on BT of HS pigs was analyzed with nine ileal cannulated pigs (61.7 ± 2.5 kg body weight). A thermometer set to register BT at 5-min intervals was implanted into the ileum. There were two treatments: low-protein (10.8%) wheat-free-amino acid diet (LP); high-protein (21.6%), wheat-soybean-meal diet (HP). The study was conducted in two 10-d periods; in each period, d1 to d6 was for diet adaptation, d7 to d9 was for data analysis, and d10 for ileal sample collection. Pigs were fed at 0600 h (morning), 1400 h (midday), and 2200 h (evening), same amount each time. Following, the separate contribution of ambient temperature and thermal effect of feeding on the postprandial BT increment was analyzed in fed and fasted pigs. Ambient temperature ranged from 30.1 to 35.4 °C and relative humidity from 50% to 84%. Both ambient temperature and BT followed similar patterns. The BT of HP pigs after the morning and midday meals was higher (P < 0.05) but size of the BT increments did not differ between HP and LP pigs. Midday and evening postprandial BT were higher than postprandial morning BT (P < 0.05). The BT increment was larger and longer after the midday than after the morning and evening meals (P < 0.05). The capacity of pigs to dissipate postprandial body heat depends on the accumulated thermal load received before their meals, because the thermal load before the morning meal was smaller than that before the evening meal. The estimated contribution of thermal effect of feeding (0.42 to 0.87 °C) on the total postprandial BT increment (0.69 to 1.53 °C) was larger (P < 0.05) than that of ambient temperature (0.27 to 0.66 °C). In conclusion, these data indicate that the dietary protein level has a small effect on the BT of HS pigs regardless of feeding time. Also both the thermal effect of feeding and ambient temperature impact the BT of HS pigs, although the former had a stronger effect. This information may be useful to design better feeding strategies for pigs exposed to HS conditions.