Growth and gut performance of young pigs in response to different dietary cellulose concentration and rearing condition

OBJECTIVE: This experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of insoluble cellulose supplementation to diets on the growth performance, intestinal morphology, the incidence of diarrhea, nutrients digestibility, and inflammatory responses in altering environmental conditions of animals housing. METHODS: A total of 108 male pigs (Duroc×[Yorkshire×Landrace]) were randomly allocated to one of three dietary treatments (cellulose 0%, 1%, 2%) and two environmental conditions (good sanitary condition vs. poor sanitary condition) to give 6 replicate pens per treatment with three pigs per each pen at 14 days post-weaning. RESULTS: Pigs were in good sanitary condition had higher average daily gain (p<0.01) and improved feed efficiency (p<0.05) from day 1 to 14 after weaning compared to their counterparts. The interactions were found between environmental conditions and dietary treatments (day 7: crypt depth [p<0.01], villous height to crypt depth [p<0.001]; day 14: crypt depth [p<0.001], villous to crypt ratio [p<0.01]) in ileum morphology. Crypt depth was decreased (p<0.05), and villous to crypt ratio was increased (p<0.05) only in poor sanitary conditions. Pigs exposed to the good sanitary condition had higher (p<0.05) apparent ileal digestibility (day 7, gross energy; day 14, dry matter), apparent total tract digestibility (day 14, dry matter and crude protein) compared to pigs housed in the poor sanitary condition. Meanwhile, pigs fed a diet supplemented with 2% cellulose had decreased (p<0.05) apparent ileal digestibility (day 7, dry matter; day 14, crude protein), apparent total tract digestibility (day 7, dry matter; day 14, crude protein, gross energy) compared to pigs fed a diet supplemented with 0% or 1% cellulose. CONCLUSION: Our results indicated that a diet supplemented with 1% cellulose increased villous to crypt ratio, however feeding a diet containing cellulose (1% or 2%) impaired nutrient digestibility for 14 day after weaning in both good sanitary and poor sanitary conditions.