Eduardo Jose Bernal Cabal

Eduardo was born in Bogotá, Colombia. He is an Animal Scientist from the University of La Salle in Bogotá and holds a Master’s of Science degree in Animal Nutrition from the University of Florida in the United States.

During his career, he worked at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT) and the Holstein Association in Cali, Colombia. He worked as a Research Assistant at the University of Florida. Later he worked in the companies Monsanto and Elanco, where he held technical, marketing and commercial positions in South and Central America. Currently, he is the general manager of Spin Colombia SAS.

The objective of this trial was to study the effect of supplementation in lactating sows of live yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae boulardii CNCM I-1079 (Levucell SB) on the concentration of IgG in colostrum.

In total, 123 sows of PIC genetics from 4 farms in Colombia participated in the trial. The sows were assigned to two experimental treatments: Control (CON), and LSB (CON + 1 x 10⁹ CFU/kg feed). The sows in the LSB treatment were supplemented at least 30 days before the expected farrowing date. Colostrum samples were taken after the birth of the first piglet, and always before the tenth piglet, never 10 hours after the birth of the first piglet.

A MA871 refractometer was used to measure the IgG content and was categorized according to Hasan et al. (2016) (Table 1).

Table 1. Validation of Brix (%) measurements

Results

Significant differences between treatments (P = 0.002) were observed in the measurement of Brix (%) of the refractometer, with the samples of sows in the LSB treatment indicating the highest value (23.55 vs. 26.30). The average value obtained for the CON treatment corresponds to the “BORDERLINE” category, while that obtained for the LSB treatment corresponds to the “ADEQUATE” category.

In the sows in the LSB treatment, a higher percentage of sows was found within the “VERY GOOD” and “ADEQUATE” categories, while in the ” BORDERLINE” and “POOR” categories there were more sows in the CON treatment, compared to the LSB treatment.

It is worth noting the difference observed in first parity sows, where LSB supplementation resulted in a Brix value (%) of 26.6%, while it remained 22.3% in sows in the CON group.

The results of this trial indicate that the supplementation of the sows with the live yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae boulardii from 30 days before the farrowing date increases the concentration of IgG in colostrum, and therefore improves the potential transfer of passive immunity from the sow to the newborn piglet. This increase is especially interesting in young sows.