Effects of glutamine on growth performance of weanling piglets
谷氨酰胺对断奶仔猪生长性能的影响

Sixty piglets weaned at 21 d age were randomly assigned to two groups(10 piglets per pen,3 pens per group).In the treaments,piglets received corn-soybean meal-based diets supplemented with 1.0 % free L-glutamine.This experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of glutamine on growth performance of 21d weanling piglets.The diarrhea rate of piglets in the glutamine treatments was markedly reduced as compared to that in the control at the 9th day of the postweaning period.Compared with the glutamine groups,the control showed higher diarrhea rate and longer diarrhea period.The control piglets had 50%-60% diarrhea rate on the 8-11th day of the postweaning period and the corresponding diarrhea rate on 12-15th day being still as high as 20%-30%.During the first ten postweaning days,the feed:gain ratio of pigs supplemented with 1.0% glutamine was 12.05%(P<0.05) lower than that of the control.During the second ten postweaning days,average daily gain of glutamine treatments was 27.75%(P<0.05) higher than that of the control with,however,no effect on the feed:gain ratio and average daily feed intake.During the first ten postweaning days,the serum urea nitrogen of pigs supplemented with 1.0% glutamine was 17.36%(P<0.05) lower than the control.The serum analysis also showed that glutamine had no significant effect on levels of total protein,albumin,T_3,T_4 and growth hormone.