Palm oil encapsulated by homogenizing and spray drying enhances nutrient digestibility and attenuates diarrhoea of piglets

Two experiments were conducted to evaluate the encapsulation of palm oil by homogenizing and spray drying on the diet nutrient digestibility, growth performance and serum biochemical indices of piglets. In experiment 1, six weaning barrows (8.0 ± 0.2 kg) were fed in a 3 × 3 Latin square design to test the apparent total tract digestibility (ATTD) of nutrients in diets with different oils: soybean oil (SO), palm oil (PO), or encapsulated palm oil (EPO). In experiment 2, piglets from 48 pre-weaning litters (age 11 days, weaned at day 22, 4.1 ± 0.5 kg) were randomly allotted to 3 dietary treatments (same as in experiment 1) to investigate the effects of dietary treatments on the growth performance and serum biochemical indices of piglets. The digestible energy (DE), metabolizable energy (ME), and ATTD of gross energy (GE), organic matter (OM), dry matter (DM), ether extract (EE), calcium and phosphorus in the EPO group were higher than those in the PO group (P < 0.05). The piglets appeared to have a lower post-weaning diarrhoea incidence when fed the EPO diet compared with the PO diet (P < 0.05). Serum total cholesterol (TC) was higher in piglets fed the SO diet than the PO diet, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) was lower in piglets fed the PO diet than the SO and EPO diet on day 33 of age (P < 0.05). Collectively, palm oil encapsulated by homogenizing and spray drying increased the ATTD of the dietary ether extract and decreased the diarrhoea incidence of piglets.