In order to evaluate the effect of frutooligosaccharide prebiotic addition on performance, incidence of diarrehea and metabolism of weaned pigs, two experiments were carried out. It was used three diets containing 0.2; 0.4 or 0.6% frutooligosaccharide formulated from basal diet (no addition of frutooligosaccharide), totalizing four experimental diets. In experiment 1, 96 weaned piglets (5.89 ± 0.86 kg) were used to evaluate weight gain, feed intake, feed conversion and diarrhea occurrence on the first 15 days of experiment. In the experiment 2, the same diets were tested for energy and nitrogen metabolism of the piglets (17.93 ± 0.66 kg). Levels of frutooligosaccharide had quadratic effect on weight gain, whose best result were obtained with the level of 0.31% of this prebiotic. Significant differences were not verified in the feed conversion neither on incidence of diarrhea. The use of frutooligosaccharide in diets for piglets did not influence digestibility neither metabolizability of experimental diets.
challenge sanitary; digestibility; nutrition; prebiotic; swine
