. 2022 Jun 24;36(1):119–131. doi: 10.5713/ab.22.0072

Table 4.

Effect of an essential oil blend on the hematological and blood biochemical profile of weaning piglets

Item	Treatments¹⁾					SEM	p-value

	NC	PC	EO100	EO200	EO400
Pre-starter II (25 days of experimentation)
ALB (g/dL)	1.87	1.81	1.74	1.84	1.80	0.055	0.718
ALT (U/L)	67.86	59.59	62.87	53.72	64.42	3.729	0.202
AP (U/L)	276.40	276.04	302.48	282.89	267.12	7.660	0.630
GLU (mg/dL)	109.63	120.27	112.15	116.97	113.94	3.366	0.820
TP (g/dL)	3.96^B	4.76^A	4.88^A	4.97^A	4.77^A	0.186	0.004
URE (mg/dL)	10.98	8.91	9.47	10.60	9.89	0.384	0.241
ER (10⁶/mm³)	5.97	5.96	6.04	6.25	5.92	0.060	0.419
HG (g/dL)	10.03	10.05	9.91	10.51	10.37	0.117	0.314
HT (%)	30.59	31.44	30.56	32.41	32.00	0.283	0.105
MCV (fL)	51.29^b	53.01^ab	50.70^b	51.97^ab	54.19^a	0.345	0.007
MCH (pg)	19.58	18.98	19.58	20.26	19.18	0.234	0.393
MCHC (g/dL)	32.78	31.93	32.42	32.42	32.39	0.210	0.776
PP (g/dL)	5.05^b	5.43^a	5.30^ab	5.18^ab	5.23^ab	0.038	0.026
Platelets (10³/mm³)	716.18	644.25	643.06	695.53	662.67	17.909	0.652
Leucocytes (mm³)	16,158	16,575	15,918	16,464	17,333	-	0.824
Band cells (%)	0.00	1.63	0.00	0.00	0.00	-	0.160
Seg. neutrophils (%)	43.59	33.50	41.88	44.47	42.72	1.384	0.097
Eosinophils (%)	1.47	1.38	1.31	1.00	1.22	-	0.831
Basophils (%)	0.18	4.44	0.13	0.12	0.00	-	0.303
Lymphocytes (%)	51.76	56.56	53.81	52.00	53.94	1.415	0.843
Monocytes (%)	3.00	2.50	2.88	2.41	2.11	-	0.658
Starter II (42 days of experimentation)
ALB (g/dL)	1.89	2.03	1.87	2.05	1.77	0.046	0.071
ALT (U/L)	61.21	64.00	55.05	56.05	59.46	2.491	0.613
AP (U/L)	374.28	361.14	381.32	389.84	365.81	9.478	0.880
GLU (mg/dL)	106.79	105.63	108.96	109.26	104.57	2.699	0.803
TP (g/dL)	5.26	5.24	5.36	5.08	4.93	0.114	0.431
URE (mg/dL)	16.07	13.08	14.66	15.33	15.97	0.458	0.176
ER (10⁶/mm³)	6.36^ab	6.52^ab	6.71^a	6.59^ab	6.31^b	0.044	0.015
HG (g/dL)	11.10	11.45	11.39	11.58	11.18	0.075	0.284
HT (%)	34.50	34.94	35.00	35.71	34.67	0.208	0.521
MCV (fL)	54.24^ab	53.60^ab	52.27^b	54.30^ab	55.09^a	0.307	0.013
MCH (pg)	20.47^ab	21.38^ab	21.84^a	21.36^ab	20.36^b	0.165	0.011
MCHC (g/dL)	32.19	32.78	32.55	32.43	32.26	0.110	0.425
PP (g/dL)	5.31	5.48	5.49	5.44	5.36	0.043	0.345
Platelets (10³/mm³)	570.50	519.65	565.41	546.36	527.67	12.007	0.574
Leucocytes (mm³)	15,000	14,864	14,170	13,621	14,022	-	0.528
Band cells (%)	0.00^c	0.24^a	0.06^cb	0.21^ab	0.22^ab	-	0.004
Seg. neutrophils (%)	39.19	35.88	36.76	39.79	36.72	0.947	0.594
Eosinophils (%)	1.25	1.41	1.41	1.79	0.78	-	0.149
Basophils (%)	3.56	0.00	0.00	0.07	0.00	-	0.350
Lymphocytes (%)	52.25	58.76	57.41	52.43	59.39	1.174	0.142
Monocytes (%)	3.75	3.71	4.35	3.64	2.89	-	0.378

SEM, standard error of the mean; ALB, albumin; ALT, alanine aminotransferase; AP, alkaline phosphatase; GLU, glucose; TP, total protein; URE, urea; ER, erythrocytes; HG, hemoglobin; HT, hematocrit; MCV, mean corpuscular volume; MCH, mean corpuscular hemoglobin; MCHC, mean corpuscular hemoglobin concentration; PP, plasma protein; Seg. neutrophils, segmented neutrophils.

¹⁾

NC, negative control: basal diet; PC, positive control: NC+125 mg performance-enhancing antibiotic (enramycin 8%)/kg diet; EO100, NC+100 mg essential oil blend/kg diet; EO200, NC+200 mg essential oil blend/kg diet; EO400, NC+400 mg essential oil blend/kg diet.

^A,B

Averages with different uppercase superscripts in the same row differ significantly by the Student-Newman-Keuls test (p<0.05).

^a–c

Averages with different lowercase superscripts in the same row differ significantly by the Tukey-Kramer test (p<0.05).