Effect of TTX Fruit & Milk Flavor on the Eating Habit of Weaned Piglets

1 Material and methods
1.1 Experiment animals
A total of 20 healthy piglets (Duroc×Landrace×Yorkhire) with same weight were randomly divided into 2 treatment groups: control group and treatment group. The control group was fed with basal diet while the treatment group was fed with basal diet +600g/t TTX Fruit & Milk Flavor. Each group has 5 replicates with 2 piglets in each replicate. Free access to water and feed during the experiment. The experiment lasted for 28 days.
1.2 Experiment diet and feeding management
Experiment Fruit & Milk Flavor was provided by Jinan Tiantianxiang Co., Ltd. The diet was formulated according to NRC pig nutrient requirement. See table 1 for Feed formula and nutrition content. Piglets had free choice of diet, free access to feed and water. Use infrared lamp for heating supply. Keep pig-house clean. Change the feeding order every 3 days without changing the place of feeding trough.

1.3 Measuring indicator and method
1.3.1 Selective feed intake
Record feed intake everyday. Calculate average daily feed intake (ADFI) weekly and calculate the ADFI of the whole experiment period.
1.3.2 Spontaneous selective feed intake frequency
Observe the spontaneous feeding behavior of weaned piglets. Clean the rest of the feed before the first feeding at day1, 4,7,10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28. Put feed 30mins later (change the feeding order). Observe and record the times of the spontaneous selective feed intake in 5mins. Calculate the percentage of each kind of feed separately.
1.4 Data processing
Use Excel to process the data, use Duncan’s method in SPSS16.0 to multiple compare the data. The result is showed as average value ± standard deviation (Mean±SD).
2 Result
2.1 Selective feed intake
Table 2 showed that, fruit and milk flavor did not have obvious effect on the selective feed intake. From week 2, feed intake of the treatment group significantly increased 15.65%, 10.80% and 22.31%. The feed intake of the treatment group increased 15.50% during the whole experiment period.

2.2 Spontaneous feed intake frequency
Table 3 showed that, the feed intake frequency of treatment group is obviously higher than the control group. The frequency of treatment group increased 45.16%(W1)、56.28%(W2)、55.23%(W3) and 49.69%(W4) separately.  The overall frequency increased 54.00%。

The result showed that, fruit and milk flavor has a good attractant effect on weaned piglets. It can significantly increase the amount and frequency of weaned piglets feed intake