David Saornil

David Saornil is a veterinarian specialized in Animal Production and Economy together with Medicine and Health. He was graduated by the University of Leon, in Spain. Most of his career has been developed in a Spanish company involved in the research and development of basemixes for piglet nutrition, where he has been working for more than 12 years. He started as a Technician, in charge of the implementation of the HACCP system, business access and formulation of feeds. Later on, apart from the above, he started also to support the International Sales Team. Since 2008 David was appointed as Technical Manager, adding the design, management, and study of the internal trials of products in different swine farms, both owned by the company and under contract. From 2011 he was also in charge of the Business Development in Latin America, especially with the setting up of local branches in some of the countries of the region. Since 2013 David managed both the Export and Technical Departments of the company, setting up the strategies, building and training the team, and supervising the different jobs. Most of his professional career has been developed in an international environment, traveling frequently to South East Asia, East Europe, and Latin America. This fact has given David a global vision of swine production and also the local applications.

In 2015 David joined Lallemand Animal Nutrition and is responsible for the applications in swine of the specific probiotic solutions and yeast derivatives that the company develops.

Enteric diseases in newborn piglets are often enzootic, and usually imply substantial economic consequences. Piglets right after birth are very sensitive, they have no energetic reserves, and their immune system is immature (they are dependent on the maternal immunity transferred through colostrum). Apart from that, they are born in a hostile environment, in which pathogens have been adding up along time due to the intensity of the production.

Another key element is sow microbiota, as its composition will be impacting the microbes that will be the first colonizers of the piglets intestine. This bacterial composition in the sow is dependent on the intestine metabolism itself and the amount of Oxygen which is released into the intestinal mucosa. Around farrowing, sow peristaltic movements are reduced, and as a consequence, the sow suffer some degree of constipation, leading to overgrowth of some bacterial species that will be transmitted (themselves or their toxins) to the piglets causing damage in the intestinal mucosa.

Saccharomyces cerevisiae boulardii CNCM I-1079 has been documented in animal nutrition for more than 25 years ago. It is able to survive the passage through the Gastrointestinal tract and is still found alive in the feces, and therefore having an effect both in the small intestine as in the gross intestine. Its mode of action is done through the action at 3 different levels:

• Stabilization of the intestinal microbiota. One of the newest learnings implies the possibility of having an effect on the microbiota of the piglets after weaning by adding the yeast only to the sows, which is known as microbial maternal imprinting.
• Maintenance of gut integrity.
• Control of the inflammatory reactions.

A particular effect of the Boulardii strain is the capacity of releasing a specific protease and a phosphatase which are able to inhibit the effect of some bacterial toxins directly related to Neonatal Diarrhea. Through different trials, and via different ways of application, we observe that the probiotic has a positive impact on the piglets reducing either their diarrhea incidence or its duration. Immunity transfer through colostrum also plays an important role in piglets protection. Also here we can observe how feeding the sow with Saccharomyces cerevisiae boulardii can have an impact on immunoglobulin concentration in the colostrum.