LAUSR

Abstract Glutamine plays an important role in neonatal growth and health. It is unknown whether supplementing the lactating sows’ diet with glutamine will benefit the growth performance and intestinal development of suckling piglets through increasing content of milk glutamine. A total of 24 lactating sows (Large White) were fed diets supplemented with/without 1% glutamine throughout the 21-d lactation. Feed intake of the sows was recorded, blood and milk samples were collected. Piglets were weighed at birth and weaning, one piglet randomly selected from each litter was sacrificed for morphological analysis of the small intestine. Average daily feed intake of the sows did not differ between control and glutamine groups. Concentrations of total protein and urea nitrogen in sows’ serum was increased by glutamine at d 14 of lactation (P<0.05). Contents of glutamine in both plasma and milk of sows were significantly increased by glutamine supplementation throughout lactation (P<0.01). Concentrations of proline, citrulline, valine, isoleucine, leucine, and arginine in sows’ plasma were increased by glutamine supplementation (all P<0.05). Milk yield was increased by glutamine supplementation at d 14 and 21 of lactation (P<0.05). Supplementing the lactating sows’ diet with glutamine increased average daily gain (P=0.006), weaning weight (P=0.032), as well as villous height and ratio of villous height:crypt depth in duodenum of the suckling piglets (both P<0.05). Collectively, supplementing lactating sows’ diet with 1% glutamine significantly improved the growth performance of suckling piglets through elevating milk yield and glutamine content in the milk.