Heat stress affects the apparent and standardized ileal digestibilities of amino acids in growing pigs

Heat stress (HS) appears to impair the pig's small intestine digestive and absorptive capacities and, therefore, may affect the AA digestibilities. A crossover-designed experiment was conducted utilizing two 7-d periods with 8 pigs (30.8 kg initial BW) surgically fitted with T-type cannulas at the terminal ileum to analyze the effect of HS on both apparent (AID) and standardized (SID) ileal digestibility of AA in pigs fed a wheat-soybean meal diet. Subcutaneous skin and ileal lumen temperatures were continuously monitored in 15-min intervals during the entire experiment. After recovery from surgery, all pigs were adapted to the diet and trained to consume the same amount of feed twice a day for 5 d in thermal-neutral (TN) conditions (22°C ± 2°C). Following adaptation, pigs were divided into 2 groups (4 pigs each); 1 remained in TN conditions, and the other group was exposed to natural HS (24°C to 45°C) for 7 d (period 1). In period 2, the 2 groups switched environments. Ileal digesta were continuously collected for 12 h, starting at 0700 h, on d 6 and 7 of each period. Chromic oxide was used as an indicator of intestinal digesta flow. The subcutaneous and the ileal temperatures were increased between 1.3°C and 1.6°C in HS compared to TN pigs ( < 0.001). The AID of AA (%) for the TN and HS pigs were Arg, 90.6, 88.1; His, 88.7, 85.9; Ile, 84.8, 83.9; Leu, 86.9, 84.1; Lys, 86.8, 86.2; Met, 89.8, 89.1; Phe, 86.0, 84.8; Thr, 76.7, 74.3; and Val, 82.8, 81.7, respectively. The SID (%) of AA for the TN and HS pigs were Arg, 94.0, 92.0; His, 92.5, 90.2; Ile, 89.5, 88.1; Leu, 90.1, 88.6; Lys, 91.0, 90.1; Met, 94.4, 93.6; Phe, 90.4, 88.9; Thr, 86.0, 83.7; and Val, 88.1, 86.5, respectively. The AID of Arg, His, and Leu was lower ( < 0.01) in HS pigs, and the SID of Arg and His was also lower in HS pigs. Neither the AID nor the SID of the remaining essential AA was affected by HS. In summary, the digestibility of essential AA is differentially affected in pigs exposed to natural HS, and thus, special attention should be given to Arg and His when formulating diets for growing pigs under HS conditions.