The effect of feeding various levels of Bifidobacterium globosum A on the performance, gastrointestinal measurements, and immunity of weanling pigs and on the performance and carcass measurements of growing-finishing pigs.

Four trials using 312 weanling pigs (average initial weight, 7.2 kg) were conducted to examine the effect of Bifidobacterium globosum A (BGA) on the growth performance, scour scores, humoral and cell-mediated immune response, and pH and chloride ion concentration (CIC) of feces and gastrointestinal tract contents of pigs. Dietary treatments were 0, 5.0 x 10(4), 6.7 x 10(6), and 7.5 x 10(8) colony forming units (cfu) of BGA/d in Trial 1 and 0, 6.0 x 10(4), 5.0 x 10(5), and 5.0 x 10(6) cfu/d in Trials 2 through 4. Pigs fed the low or medium levels of supplemental BGA had a greater ADG (P < .05) than control pigs throughout Trial 1, whereas ADG was quadratically increased (P < .05) for the low or medium levels only during wk 3 to 5 for the pooled data for Trials 2, 3, and 4. The primary effect of dietary BGA additions on ADFI was a quadratic increase during wk 3 to 5 for Trial 1 (P < .05) and for the pooled data of Trials 2 through 4 (P < .10). Gain:feed ratios were generally unaffected by addition of BGA. Both ADFI and ADG tended to be decreased (P < .10) at the highest level of BGA in all trials. Scouring was not severe in any of the trials and was not consistently affected by feeding BGA. The pH and CIC of gastrointestinal contents or feces were not influenced by the feeding of BGA.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)