Assessment of the application for microelement methionine hydroxy analogue chelate replacing amino acid chelate in pregnant sows

doi:10.21203/rs.3.rs-1765234/v1

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Assessment of the application for microelement methionine hydroxy analogue chelate replacing amino acid chelate in pregnant sows

https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1765234/v1

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Trace element additives are widely supplemented in animal feed to improve growth and reproductive performance, especially for pregnant sows. Although organic trace elements significantly improved production performance compared with inorganic form due to the better bioavailability, antioxidant and immune-promoting function, reports on comparison of the effects on different ligands is still limited. And it is not known that microelement methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC) whether has similar or even better bioavailability than amino acid chelate (AAC). Thus, the Zn, Cu and Mn chelated with methionine hydroxy analogue (Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC) and amino acid chelate (AAC) were compared in two large-scaled farms under similar conditions. The results showed Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC trace elements significantly increased reproductive performance of Landrace × Yorkshire (LY) 1st sows in treatment farm related to litter size and weight while reduced all adverse pregnancy outcomes (P < 0.001) not only in partial application period but also in full application period compared with historical period, especially in live litter size (P < 0.001), healthy litter size (P < 0.001) and litter weight (P < 0.001), and the increase of birth average weight more than 100g. Treatment farm has similar-level (P > 0.05) even significantly better production performance included litter size (P = 0.003), live litter size (P = 0.039) and mummies (P = 0.011) compared to the control farm in the end of trial period which was much worse than that of control farm in historical period (P < 0.001). In addition, all production performance of treatment farm had a continuous upward trend while control farm showed instability and decreasing trend. Our research revealed Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC may have better effect on improving the performance of sows compared to amino acid chelate (AAC).

methionine hydroxy analogue chelate

microelements

sows

reproductive performance

Microelements are essential nutrients for animals, widely involved in physiological and biochemical activities in animal growth and development, immune response and antioxidant stress[1]. As for gestation and lactation sows, the rapid growth and development of embryos and piglets leads to increased demand for trace elements[2], resulted in increased risk of micronutrient deficiency, which may lead to retarded fetal development, increased number of weak offspring, reduced litter weight at birth and survival rate of piglets[3]. A large amount of research shows that iron[4], zinc[5, 6], copper[7], manganese[8], selenium, iodine and other elements are necessary for sows during pregnancy and lactation, the supplementation of these trace elements significantly affects the reproductive performance indicators of animals[9]. Both trace elements deficiency and overload will not only reduce the production performance but lead to adverse pregnancy outcomes[10, 11]. Thus, the suitability of micronutrient nutrition can be evaluated by the reproductive performance of pregnant animals[12].

Organic trace elements are mostly chelate formed by trace elements with amino acids, proteins or other ligands, which can remain stable in the intestinal tract and be less antagonistic to phytic acid[13], so that organic trace elements can reach the intestine and be absorbed completely, thus improving the bioavailability[14–16]. Compared with traditional inorganic trace elements, organic trace elements supplement has higher absorption efficiency and can significantly improve the reproductive performance of female and growth performance of offspring[17–22]. Therefore, organic micronutrients are commonly used as supplements in sow production.

The absorption utilization and effects of organic chelated trace elements with different ligands may have significant differences[23]. Trace elements chelate of hydroxy analogue of methionine as a common dietary trace element supplement was proved to have good stability and bioavailability without apparent toxicity[24, 25]. Studies have proved that methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) trace elements effected on lameness, growth, and body composition of sow[26, 27]. And experiments on cows and poultry show that methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) trace elements significantly improve growth performance[28], laying performance[29], mineral deposition[30] and immune function[31] compared with inorganic trace element. However, the effect of methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) trace elements on reproductive performance of pregnant and lactating sows remains to be studied, especially compared with general organic trace elements such as amino acid chelated (AAC) trace element which including a variety of amino acids chelated in a 1:1 ratio. This experiment conducted in two sow farms for about one year compared the improvement effect of Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC on the reproductive performance of sows to the addition of amino acid chelate (AAC) under the same level of genetic composition, basal diet, dietary trace element content and management model. The results showed that methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) trace elements significantly improved the reproductive performance of sows at delivery and weaning compared with amino acid chelated (AAC) trace element, but the mechanism of its effect on reproductive performance remains to be further explored.

The care and handling of the sows used in this study followed the standards of the Animal Care and Use Committee of the Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Science (No. ISA-2017-012). This study was conducted at two farms 120 kilometers apart in the Longyuan, Fujian province. The experimental period was from January 1, 2021 to November 30, 2021.

Animals, diets and experimental design

Two about 1500 sow farrow-wean units within the same production system were used in the evaluation according to almost same genetic constitution (Table 1) and management model (Table 2). One farm remained on their original amino acid chelated (AAC) trace elements formula (Control farm) which contain Zn-, Cu- and Mn-AAC with ferrous glycine. For the other farm, original amino acid chelated (AAC) trace elements supplement was replaced with a same level of trace elements from 1kg/t Mintrex® trace mineral provided by Novus which contain Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC, and extra 100g/t ferrous glycine was added to the diet (Treatment farm). 1 kg/t Mintrex® provided 50 mg/kg Fe, 60 mg/kg Zn, 10 mg/kg Cu, 20 mg/kg Mn, 0.25 mg/kg Se and 1.2 mg/kg I in diet. The composition and nutrient levels of basal diet for sows in the experimental period is as follows (Table 3). In addition, dietary samples of sows were collected monthly to detect trace element content and nutrient compositions which ensure the contents of trace elements and nutrients compositions in the two diets were basically at the same level during the whole experiment period.

Table 1

Genetic composition of two farms
Genetic	Control farm	Treatment farm
Landrace	3%	3%
Yorkshire	20%	18%
Duroc	3%	3%
Landrace × York (LY)	74%	76%
Duroc × Landrace × York (DLY)	< 1%	< 1%

Table 2

Feeding management model of sow farm
	Items	Method
Gestation	Sow mating times/time interval	3 times/12h
	Body condition control	Adjust feed intake according to body condition
	Feeding pattern	High-low-high model, 1.8–2.2 kg, feed two times a day at a fixed time
Lactation	Feeding pattern	Feeding is restricted for the first five days, and free feeding begins on the sixth day
	Promote feeding methods	Add yeast, wet feed
	Week piglet treatment	Foster care or elimination
	Adjust the pigsty	2 times (The second day and half a month after delivery)
	Feeding time of piglets	7 days
	Weaning time	22 days
Feeding environment	Temperature and humidity control	Negative pressure ventilation, water and Single drinking bowl
Feeding environment	Floor type	Delivery room (full seam leakage), Pregnancy (half seam leakage)

Table 3

Basic dietary components of gestation and lactation sows
Ingredient	Dietary inclusion (%)
	Gestation		Lactation
	Con¹	Trt²	Con	Trt
Soybean meal	19.00	19.00	20.00	20.00
Corn	56.00	56.00	57.00	57.00
Wheat bran	18.00	18.00	16.00	16.00
Soybean oil	2.50	2.50	2.50	2.50
Stone powder	1.20	1.20	1.20	1.20
L-lysine HCl (70%)	0.60	0.60	0.60	0.60
CaHPO4	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
NaCl	0.50	0.50	0.50	0.50
L-threonine (98.5%)	0.10	0.10	0.10	0.10
DL-methionine (98.5%)	0.09	0.09	0.09	0.09
Phytase	0.01	0.01	0.01	0.01
Vitamin and mineral premix³	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00
Total	100.00	100.00	100.00	100.00
Nutrient levels⁴ (Content %)
DE (MJ/kg)	3.29	3.29	3.31	3.31
CP	13.06	13.17	17.00	17.00
CF	5.94	5.89	3.09	2.69
EE	2.09	2.34	3.24	3.44
Ash	5.43	5.34	5.13	5.07
Ca	0.83	0.81	0.89	0.87
Tatol P	0.59	0.63	0.51	0.50
¹Con, control farm.
²Trt, treatment farm.
³The vitamin and mineral premix provided the following per kg of diets: vitamin A 15000 IU, vitamin D₃ 2400 IU, vitamin E 18 IU, vitamin B₁ 2 mg, vitamin B₂ 5 mg, vitamin B₆ 2 mg, vitamin B₁₂ 20 mg, vitamin C 200 mg, vitamin K₃ 4 mg, Folic acid 0.8 mg, D-pantothenic acid 12 mg, Nicotinic acid 20 mg, D-biotin 0.6mg, Cu (Cu-MHAC/AAC) 20 mg, Zn (Zn-MHAC/AAC) 60 mg, Mn (Mn-MHAC/AAC) 20 mg, Fe (Fe-Gly) 70 mg, I (CaI₂O₆) 1.2 mg, Se (Na₂SeO₃) 0.25 mg.
⁴Nutrient levels present mean value of monthly detection.

Determination of nutrient components and trace elements in diets

The contents of nutrients in the diet were determined by random sampling every month with a repetition number over three. The samples were tested according method AOAC[32]. And the trace elements of diets were measured by ICP-MS as described previously[12].

Reproductive performance data collection

The historical performance monitor data was exported from the record keeping system. Record parities, varieties, mating dates, delivery and weaning dates of sows with ear tags. Litter size, live litter size, healthy litter size, death litter size, weak litter size, stillborn, mummies and weaned piglets were collected at the time of delivery and weaning, litter weight is taken at birth and the birth average weight is calculated by dividing litter weight by litter size. All these data of reproductive performance were import into Excel.

Statistical analysis

All the collected data of reproductive performance were recorded in Microsoft Office Excel, in addition, data of sows eliminated after May were excluded according to production records to reduce test error. Statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS Statistics 25.0 software, and all figures were finished in GraphPad Prism 9.0. Since the gestation period of sows is 114 days, the whole trial period is divided into three periods: historical period (HP: 2021.1.1-2021.5.10), partial application period (PAP: 2021.5.11-2021.8.31) and full application period (FAP: 2021.9.1-2021.11.30). The difference between the two farm is performed using t-test, comparison between different experiment periods were analyzed by One-way ANOVA. Results are given as mean values or mean ± SD, P-Value < 0.05 means significant difference.

Better historical reproductive performance of control farm compared to treatment farm

The whole experiment was conducted on two farms over a period for about one year (2021.1.1-2021.11.30), and as shown in Table 1, the sow variety on both farms were almost identical in structure. Under the same management condition (Table 2), the control farm used the amino acid chelated (AAC) trace element addition unchanged, in other farm, the Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC were used to replace the original organic trace elements addition which was same as that in control farm began in May 10, 2021. Therefore, the historical period (HP) is before May 10, 2021, and the full application period (FAP) is after September 1, 2021 when sows are fed Mintrex® in the whole gestation. While May 11, 2021 to August 31, 2021 was considered as the partial application period (PAP) for statistics.

Since Yorkshire and LY sows account for the largest proportion, the historical reproductive performance analyzed by variety (Yorkshire and LY) in two farms was shown in Table 4. In historical period, the treatment farm had worse reproductive performance data that related with litter size and litter weight, especially litter weight (P = 0.001), birth average weight (P < 0.001) and weaned piglets (P < 0.001) in Yorkshire sows, and the weaned piglets of LY sows in control farm was significantly higher than that in treatment farm (P < 0.001). In addition, the index of adverse reproductive performance in treatment farm was significantly higher than that of control farm, such as death litter size, weak litter size and so on (P < 0.001, P < 0.001, P < 0.001, P < 0.001) which reflected in two varieties. There are many factors for this difference, but considering that the data collected in treatment farm are all from the first farrowing sows since the farm was established shortly, we also compared the historical reproductive performance between the two farms by parity (Table 5). Analogously, all reproductive performance of the 1st parity was still much worse than that in the control farm, the litter size, healthy litter size, litter weight and weaned piglets in control farm were better than that in treatment farm (P = 0.017, P = 0.006, P = 0.018, P < 0.001). In addition, all the incidence of adverse pregnancy outcomes in control farm was less than that in treatment farm (P < 0.001).

Table 4

Reproductive performance of Yorkshire and LY sows in historical period
Item	Yorkshire				LY
Item	Con¹	Trt²	SEM	P-value³	Con	Trt	SEM	P-value
Litter size	11.26	10.68	0.21	0.052	12.01	10.16	0.10	0.064
Live litter size	10.64	8.99	0.21	0.35	11.46	9.05	0.10	0.628
Healthy litter size	10.48	7.56	0.21	0.06	11.23	7.69	0.10	0.065
Litter weight (kg)	14.25	9.25	0.29	0.001	15.86	10.04	0.19	0.053
Birth average weight (kg)	1.36	1.04	0.01	< 0.001	1.40	1.12	0.02	0.913
Weaned piglets	10.22	8.67	0.11	< 0.001	10.41	8.66	0.06	< 0.001
Death litter size	0.55	1.69	0.12	< 0.001	0.55	1.11	0.05	< 0.001
Weak litter size	0.11	1.24	0.08	< 0.001	0.16	1.26	0.04	< 0.001
Stillborn	0.55	1.21	0.10	0.001	0.32	0.64	0.03	< 0.001
Mummies	0.07	0.48	0.06	< 0.001	0.23	0.47	0.04	< 0.001
¹Con, control farm.
²Trt, treatment farm.
³P-Value reflects differences between reproductive performance in two farms.

Table 5

Reproductive performance of sows in historical period according to parity
Item	1st parity				2nd parity	3rd parity	Parity
Item	Trt¹	Con²	SEM	P-value³	Con	Con	SEM	P-value
Litter size	10.23	11.72	0.09	0.017	11.99	11.64	0.14	0.607
Live litter size	9.03	11.08	0.10	0.314	11.45	11.13	0.14	0.454
Healthy litter size	7.69	10.83	0.09	0.006	11.19	11.05	0.14	0.479
Litter weight (kg)	9.9	15^b	0.17	0.018	16.03^a	15.55^a	0.19	0.055
Birth average weight (kg)	1,1	1.37^b	0.01	0.477	1.42^a	1.4^a	0.01	0.077
Weaned piglets	8.66	10.37	0.06	< 0.001	10.26	10.13	0.09	0.609
Death litter size	1.2	0.64	0.05	< 0.001	0.54	0.51	0.04	0.459
Weak litter size	1.2	0.17	0.04	< 0.001	0.18	0.7	0.02	0.232
Stillborn	0.72	0.44^a	0.04	< 0.001	0.29^b	0.4^a	0.03	0.109
Mummies	0.48	0.19	0.04	< 0.001	0.25	0.12	0.03	0.21
¹Trt, treatment farm.
²Con, control farm.
³P-Value reflects differences between reproductive performance in two farms and at different parities.
^abc means significant differences (P < 0.05) between different groups.

Methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) trace elements narrows gap of reproductive performance of sows between the treatment farm and control farm

In order to evaluate the effect of methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) trace elements on reproductive performance of sows, reproductive performance data of LY sows in two farms was tracked and recorded. we counted and analyzed the mean value of reproductive performance data compared the difference between two farms by calculating the “adjust change” value, and the results were shown in Table 6. Obviously, compared with the HP, the reproductive performance of the control farm in PAP and FAP decreased significantly, including live litter size, healthy litter size, litter weight, birth average weight and weaned piglets (P < 0.001, P < 0.001, P < 0.001, P = 0.016, P = 0.004) except litter size (P = 0.083), while all reproductive performance in treatment farm has been significantly improved in PAP and FAP compared to HP (P < 0.001). At the same time, adverse reproductive performance in treatment farm decreased obviously, such as weak litter size and mummies (P < 0.001, P = 0.013). And the “adjusted change” calculated by mean value revealed that the production performance of the treatment farm had been greatly improved compared with that of the control farm.

Table 6

Reproductive performance of LY 1st sows in different trial periods
Item	Con¹							Trt²							Trt vs Con
	HP	PAP	FAP	SEM	P-value³	Net change		HP	PAP	FAP	SEM	P-value	Net change		Adj change
	HP	PAP	FAP	SEM	P-value³	PAP	FAP	HP	PAP	FAP	SEM	P-value	PAP	FAP	PAP	FAP
Litter size	11.88^a	11.36^ab	11.06^b	0.15	0.083	-0.52	-0.82	10.16^b	11.94^ab	12^a	0.08	< 0.001	1.78	1.84	2.3	2.66
Live litter size	11.29^a	10.59^a	9.39^b	0.17	< 0.001	-0.7	-1.9	9.05^b	10.56^a	10.78^a	0.09	< 0.001	1.51	1.73	2.21	3.63
Healthy litter size	11.05^a	10.48^a	9.19^b	0.17	< 0.001	-0.57	-1.86	7.69^c	9.04^b	9.77^a	0.08	< 0.001	1.35	2.08	1.92	3.94
Litter weight (kg)	15.45^a	13.96^b	12.72^c	0.23	< 0.001	-1.49	-2.73	10.04^c	12.41^b	13.29^a	0.15	< 0.001	2.37	3.25	3.86	5.98
Birth average weight (kg)	1.39^a	1.33^b	1.37^ab	0.01	0.016	-0.06	-0.02	1.12^b	1.19^a	1.24^a	0.01	< 0.001	0.07	0.12	0.13	0.14
Weaned piglets	10.51^a	9.88^a	9.39^b	0.14	0.004	-0.63	-1.12	8.66^b	10.48^a	10.33^a	0.07	< 0.001	1.82	1.67	2.45	2.79
Death litter size	0.59^b	0.79^ab	1.67^a	0.10	< 0.001	0.2	1.08	1.11	1.38	1.23	0.05	0.111	0.27	0.12	0.07	-0.96
Weak litter size	0.16	0.09	0.14	0.03	0.593	-0.07	-0.02	1.26^a	1.02^b	0.62^c	0.04	< 0.001	-0.24	-0.64	-0.17	-0.62
Stillborn	0.33^b	0.64^a	0.53^ab	0.06	0.084	0.31	0.2	0.64	0.69	0.81	0.04	0.286	0.05	0.17	-0.26	-0.03
Mummies	0.26^b	0.13^b	1.14^a	0.08	< 0.001	-0.13	0.88	0.47^b	0.69^a	0.42^b	0.04	0.013	0.22	-0.05	0.35	-0.93
¹Con, control farm.
²Trt, treatment farm.
³P-Value reflects differences between reproductive performance at different periods.
^abc means significant differences (P < 0.05) between different groups.

Changing trend of reproductive performance in two farms between January 1,2021 to November 30, 2021

To reveal the changing trend of the reproductive performance in the two farms, we displayed the reproductive performance from LY and 1st parity sows in line charts. As shown in the Fig. 1, we analyzed the monthly reproductive performance indicators since May 2021 to compared with historical period.

The reproductive performance in control farm was almost stable even slightly down for about one year while that in treatment farm had an overall upward trend. In HP, litter size, live litter size, healthy litter size, litter weight and weaned piglets in control farm was significantly better than that in treatment farm (P < 0.001). These indexes in the treatment farm reached or even exceeded those in the control farm after September due to the continuous improvement of reproductive performance in the treatment throughout the whole trial period, especially litter size and live litter size in treatment was significantly better compared to control farm (P = 0.003, P = 0.039) (Fig. 1a-d, f). However, the birth average weight of the control farm was significantly higher than that of the treatment farm during the whole experimental period, although which had a continuous upward trend in treatment farm (Fig. 1e).

Changing trend of adverse reproductive performance in two farms between January 1,2021 to November 30, 2021

We also show the changes in adverse reproductive performance in Fig. 2. Methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) trace elements had a very significant effect on reducing adverse birth outcomes, especially in death litter size and mummies compared with traditional organic trace element additive. All adverse reproductive performance index was higher in treatment farm compared with control farm, death litter size and mummies maintained the downward trend after May in treatment farm while increased in control farm. As a result, death litter size and mummies in treatment farm were almost the same as and lower than the control farm at the end of the trial period (P = 0.606, P = 0.011) (Fig. 1a, d). However, the weak litter size of the control farm was significantly lower than that of the treatment farm during the whole experimental period, although which had a continuous downward trend in treatment farm. And stillborn in two farms basically remain unchanged (Fig. 2b-c).

In order to evaluate effect of methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC) on reproductive performance of sow compared to traditional amino acid chelated (AAC) trace elements, the experiment was conducted in two large-scale commercial sow farms in Fujian province. To ensure that the results of the experiment are minimally affected by the environment and other factors[33], the two farms with almost identical genetic constitution, basic diet and management model. The 120 km distance between the two farms ensured that the experiments in almost identical climatic conditions. Different from other previous organic trace element assessment experiments of sow, this research data come directly from a large number of samples in actual production which has more than two-thousand replications while almost researches used about one hundred sow replicates[34, 35]. Furthermore, our evaluation experiment lasted a long time, almost one year, as opposed to just a few months, which covers the entire gestation and lactation period of sows. A large number of studies only compared the control group and the treatment group[21, 36], but we analyzed the data from a multidimensional perspective which not only compared the data of the two farms at the same periods, but also analyzed the change trend of the data of each farm throughout the trial period and compared the data of different feeding periods. It has been reported that the reproductive performance of sows is significantly affected by variety and parity[37, 38], the reproductive performance data of sows also was performed statistic by variety and parity. Such methods of analyzing data are used to objectively reflect the effect of methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC) on the reproductive performance of sows in actual production.

Firstly, the historical data of Yorkshire and LY sows which account for the largest proportion in two farms was analyzed, the differences between the two farms are similar in both Yorkshire and LY, the majority number and weight related reproductive performance of control farm was significantly higher than that of treatment farm, and the incidence of adverse pregnancy was significantly lower. These results generally reflected that the production of the treatment farm was worse than that of the control farm, which may be due to that the treatment farm was a newly built with all data of HP in 1st parity. It has been reported that the reproductive performance of sows is significantly affected by parities, 1st parity is significantly lower than over 2nd parity[33, 39, 40], which is also consistent with our previous research[12] and the results of HP analyzed according to parity in control farm. Obviously, the number and weight related reproductive performance of control farm increased with parity, while the grade of adverse pregnancy outcome decreased significantly. In the actual production of sows, LY sows, as the main variety of breeding sow, which have significantly better reproductive performance of other varieties such as DLY, landrace and Duroc sows[33, 41]. Therefore, improving the reproductive performance of LY sows in 1st parity is the critical point to enhance the production efficiency of sow farm.

Then, we analyzed the variation trend monthly and compared difference of reproductive performance between feeding period of LY 1st parity sows which has importance to production performance of farm. Obviously, reproductive performance related to litter size and weight (> 100g average weight) of treatment farm significantly increased while the probability of adverse pregnancy outcomes reduced not only in PAP but also in FAP compared with HP. And production performance of treatment farm was similar as the control farm in the end of experiment which was much worse than that of control farm in the beginning. All these results indicate that Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC can greatly improve the production efficiency of the LY 1st parity sows compared with amino acid chelated (AAC) trace element which is consistent with previous reports on sows, piglets, broilers, cows and other animals which made comparison between methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC) and inorganic trace elements. A similar study of sows showed that sows fed Cu-, Zn- and Mn-MHAC affects the intestinal health of fetuses and piglets, promotes the development of skeletal muscle to improves the growth performance of offspring[27]. Cu-MHAC even 50% Cu-, Zn-, Mn-MHAC substitution also significantly increased feed intake and weight gain of piglets, resulting in better muscle development[27, 42]. In addition, Zn-MHAC improved milk production and significantly inhibited the inflammatory response of udder[43]. Methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC) may improve animal production performance due to its unique structural and chemical character. Different with amino acid chelate (AAC), methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) has higher chelating titer (2:1) and hydroxyl modified methionine ligands which may be able to explain the better effectiveness of improving production performance. Both in vivo and in vitro experiments have proved that Fe- and Zn-MHAC have higher absorption efficiency without apparent toxicity compared with inorganic form[24], caused by great stability and integral absorption[25]. For broilers and hens, higher deposition and lower fecal emissions were also observed in Cu-, Zn- and Mn-MHAC, indicating better bioavailability in animals[44, 45]. Better absorption and transport efficiency may improve the number and weight related reproductive performance of sows, which explains the significant improvement of reproductive performance such as live litter size, healthy litter size and litter weight by methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC). Interestingly, the reproductive performance especially in litter size, litter weight death litter size and stillborn of the control farm fluctuated obviously from July to October with hot weather, which usually results in severe heat stress in sows reduced production performance[46]. On the contrary, treatment farm maintained steady and slowly improving production performance over the same period. In addition to higher absorption efficiency, methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC) has been proved to possess a variety of biological regulatory functions. Zn-MHAC has antioxidant function and improves broiler meat quality by alleviating heat stress[47, 48]. Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC reduced arthritis biomarkers by improving antioxidant function and immune response of cows[49]. Therefore, antioxidant and enhanced immune function caused by methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC) may be responsible for stable and ideal production performance of sow. In summary, these may be the reasons for methionine hydroxy analogue chelate (MHAC) to effectively improve the reproductive performance of sows, but the mechanism remains to be further studied.

The large-scale farm experiment conducted on two farms under similar conditions showed that substituting Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC for amino acid chelated (AAC) trace element significantly improved the reproductive performance of LY 1st sow which occupy the largest proportion. Obviously, methionine hydroxy analogue chelated (MHAC) trace elements significantly increased reproductive performance related to litter size and weight while reduced the probability of adverse pregnancy outcomes not only in PAP but also in FAP compared with HP. Zn-, Cu- and Mn-MHAC have higher bioavailability, antioxidant and immune-promoting functions compared to amino acid chelated (AAC) trace elements that may be responsible for maintaining stable and efficient of production performance.

Funding

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFD0501201), the Outstanding Youth Fund of Hunan Natural Science Foundation (2021JJ20045), the Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by CAST (2018QNRC001), the Science and Technology Program of Hunan Province (2020NK2013, 2020GK4095), the key R&D Program of Guangxi Province (2021AB200663).

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Author Contributions

Yulong Yin, Dan Wan and Cimin Long contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Shuan Liu, Chengyan Gong, Wei Zhao and Yuyun Mu. The first draft of the manuscript was written by Liu Guo and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data Availability

The data used to support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon request.

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No competing interests reported.

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Assessment of the application for microelement methionine hydroxy analogue chelate replacing amino acid chelate in pregnant sows

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Abstract

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Introduction

Materials And Methods

Animals, diets and experimental design

Determination of nutrient components and trace elements in diets

Reproductive performance data collection

Statistical analysis

Results

Better historical reproductive performance of control farm compared to treatment farm

Changing trend of reproductive performance in two farms between January 1,2021 to November 30, 2021

Discussion

Conclusions

Declarations

Funding

Competing Interests

Author Contributions

Data Availability

References

Additional Declarations

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