Table 7.
Post-absorptive plasma sulfur-containing metabolite concentrations (µmol/L) of piglets at birth, weaning, and after three and six weeks of the nursery phase from sows fed diets containing 0.92 or 0.29% SID SAAs from day 90 to farrowing 1.
| Dietary Treatment 1 | SEM 4 | p-Value 5 | ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Item | 0.29 | 0.92 | ||||||||||
| Birth | Wean 2 | Three Weeks 3 | Six Weeks 3 | Birth | Wean 2 | Three Weeks 3 | Six Weeks 3 | Diet | Stage | Diet × Stage | ||
| Homocysteine | 3.64 a | 36.71 b | 37.40 d | 25.69 e | 3.45 a | 51.62 c | 39.04 d | 28.82 e | 2.62 | 0.07 | <0.001 | <0.001 |
| Cysteinyl–glycine | 10.10 | 32.99 | 17.73 | 22.08 | 10.28 | 33.67 | 18.37 | 20.45 | 1.03 | 0.96 | <0.001 | 0.595 |
| Glutathione | 1.078 | 0.813 | 1.653 | 1.484 | 0.801 | 1.128 | 2.01 | 0.995 | 0.28 | 0.89 | 0.105 | 0.197 |
| Methionine | 18.11 | 50.62 | 45.67 | 51.84 | 31.00 | 51.6 | 41.75 | 49.98 | 5.19 | 0.62 | <0.001 | 0.321 |
| Cysteine | 43.22 | 27.73 | 23.05 | 40.12 | 44.49 | 32.24 | 22.65 | 28.72 | 6.36 | 0.73 | 0.017 | 0.564 |
| Taurine | 126.4 | 117.9 | 77.80 | 92.32 | 114.6 | 119.9 | 57.7 | 92.42 | 9.89 | 0.3 | <0.001 | 0.699 |
1 Dietary treatments were as follows: 0.29% and 0.92% standardized ileal digestible sulfur AAs, which correspond to 63 or 200% of the estimated SID SAAs requirement for primiparous sows in late gestation (requirements from d 90 to d 114 of gestation, 145 kg of body weight at breeding, expected litter size of 15, and piglet birth weight of 1.35 kg). Common diets were provided in a 4-phase feeding program after weaning (Phase I: wean to d 7; Phase II: d 8 to d 21; Phase III: d 22 to d 35; Phase IV: d 36 to end of trial). Blood samples were collected after farrowing, within 1 h post-parturition before 1st suckling, at weaning, and in post-absorptive stage, 15 h after the last meal for weeks 3 and 6 of nursery. 2 Weaning occurred after 23 ± 5 days. 3 Analysis performed to evaluate a possible carry-over effect of experimental diets containing 0.29% or 0.92% standardized ileal digestible sulfur amino acids fed to the gilt between d 90 of gestation and farrowing. 4 Maximum value for the standard error of the means. 5 p-values for the two-way ANOVA procedure between the dietary treatments, stage (birth, wean, 3rd and 6th week of nursery), and the interaction. a,b,c,d,e means with different superscript are statistically different within the stage.