Increasing Feed Efficiency by Attenuating the Transportation Stress Response in Nursery Piglets through L-Tryptophan Supplementation

Scientific Abstract

Weaning of pigs is often concurrent with transportation-induced stress which can impair growth performance, feed efficiency, and immune resilience, contributing to reduced welfare and increased production losses. The objectives of these experiments were to:

1) eliminate or reduce short- and long-term, transport-induced reductions in feed efficiency and growth by providing supplemental Tryptophan (Trp) above NRC (2012)
requirements pre-and/or post-weaning.
2) The objective of this experiment was to mitigate the adverse effects of early life transport stress on subsequent immune challenges by providing supplemental Tryptophan (Trp) during the nursery period.