Effect of Supplementation of Zinc Oxide (ZnO) and Zinc Methionine (ZnM) on Gut Microbial Status in Piglets

Abstract

An experiment was conducted to know the effect of feeding organic and inorganic sources of additional zinc on growth incidences of gut microbial status in piglets. Sixty graded (LWY) suckling piglets were randomly divided into three treatment group of twenty piglets each on the basis of litter size, parity and live birth weight. Treatment (T1) served as control and these piglets were fed with deionized water daily as oral suspensions. Treatment (T2) and Treatment (T3) were fed with fed Zinc Oxide (ZnO) and Zinc Methionine (ZnM) daily (50 ppm) as oral resepectively. The average fecal E-coli counts in control (T1), ZnO (T2) and ZnM (T3) groups were log 10 -1 7.4, log 10 -1 7.1 and log 10 -1 7.2 respectively. The E. coli count in the feces of the experimental groups were observed to decline from level of 109 at first week to 106 at fifth week to 105 on day sixty of the trial period. The statistical analysis of E-coli count revealed that there were no statistical significant difference between the control (T1), zinc oxide (T2) and zinc methionine (T3) groups experimental groups respectively. Therefore, an intestinal flora with a high diversity is considered to reflect a stable microbial community with a higher colonization resistance.