Intestinal Microflora Associated with Enteritis of Early-Weaned Pigs

Studies were conducted on the enumeration of 7 groups of fecal microflora including total aerobes, total anaerobes, coliforms, lactobacilli, staphylococci, streptococci and yeasts and molds of 18-day old piglets. These pigs were early weaned (21 days) on different modifications of an early-weaning ration. The above mentioned microflora were enumerated again when some of the pigs in a replicate started scouring. The occurrence of diarrhea was always associated with significant increases in the numbers of coliforms and corresponding decreases in the lactobacilli counts. No other single group of fecal microflora differed in the scouring and non-scouring animals. The composition of the early-weaning ration offered to the animals did not, in itself, influence the fecal microflora to any appreciable extent. In another series of experiments, enumeration of coliforms and lactobacilli was conducted on samples obtained from different segments of the intestinal tracts of scouring and non-scouring pigs. Increased numbers of coliforms and decreased numbers of lactobacilli were observed at all levels of the intestinal tracts of the scouring animals. However, these changes were more marked in the duodenal samples than in those obtained from other parts of the intestine.