Low-level arginine supplementation (0.1%) of wheat-based diets in pregnancy increases the total and live-born litter sizes in gilts

Abstract

The present study was conducted to test the effects of l-arginine supplementation of wheat-based diets on the pregnancy outcome of gilts. Pregnant gilts (Yorkshire × Landrace, n = 113) were assigned randomly into two groups representing dietary supplementation with 0.1% l-arginine as l-arginine-HCl or 0.17% l-alanine (isonitrogenous control) between Days 30 and 110 of pregnancy. Blood samples were obtained from the ear vein on Days 30, 70 and 90 of pregnancy. Compared with the control, arginine supplementation increased the total number of piglets born by 1.10 per litter and the number of live-born piglets by 1.10 per litter (P < 0.05). Plasma concentration of spermine was higher in gilts fed arginine diets than in those fed control diets at Day 90 of pregnancy (P < 0.05). Dietary arginine supplementation increased plasma concentration of IGF-I of gilts at Day 90 of pregnancy (P < 0.01) and plasma concentrations of arginine, proline and ornithine at Days 70 and 90 of pregnancy (P < 0.05). These results indicated that low-level supplementation (0.1%) of l-arginine–HCl of wheat-based diets beneficially enhances the reproductive performance of gilts and is feasible for use in commercial production.