Changes in diarrhea, nutrients apparent digestibility, digestive enzyme activities of weaned piglets in response to chitosan‐zinc chelate

A total of 120 weanling barrows weighing 6.11 ± 0.20 kg were randomly allotted to four treatments with three replications (i.e. pen) of ten piglets per replicate. Pigs were received corn‐soybean basal diet (control) or the same basal diet supplemented with the following sources of zinc: (i) 100 mg/kg of Zn as ZnSO 4 ; (ii) 100 mg/kg of Zn as chitosan‐Zn chelate (CS‐Zn); and (iii) 100 mg/kg of Zn as ZnSO 4 mixed with chitosan (CS + ZnSO 4 ). The results showed that CS‐Zn could highly improve average daily gain and average daily feed intake than those of ZnSO 4 or CS+ ZnSO 4 ( P  < 0.05). The pigs fed dietary CS‐Zn had lower diarrhea incidence and higher apparent digestibility of crude protein than those of the pigs fed dietary ZnSO 4 ( P  < 0.05). The protease activities in duodenal content of the pigs receiving CS‐Zn diets was higher than that of the pigs fed dietary ZnSO 4 or CS + ZnSO 4 ( P  < 0.05). The amylase activity in duodenal content of the pigs fed dietary CS‐Zn was higher than that of the pigs receiving ZnSO 4 diets or basal diets ( P  < 0.05). These results indicated that dietary CS‐Zn showed different bioactivities from ZnSO 4 or CS + ZnSO 4 in reducing the incidence of diarrhea, improving activities of digestive enzymes and growth performance of weaned pigs.