Hi. My name is Carly Rundle. I'm a graduate student in the Hans H. Stein Monogastric Nutrition Laboratory, and today I will be discussing the effects of isoquinoline alkaloids on growth performance and blood characteristics of weanling pigs fed corn-soybean meal diets. And this is a poster that I presented at the Midwest Meeting of the American Society of Animal Sciences in 2019. Isoquinoline alkaloids are used as a phytobiotic feed additive in swine diets as an alternative to antibiotic growth promoters in order to improve growth performance, reduce inflammation, and improve intestinal integrity as well as increase nutrient digestibility. It was the objective of this experiment to test the hypothesis that inclusion of IQ, or isoquinoline alkaloids, in corn-soybean meal diets will improve the growth performance and alter blood characteristics of weanling pigs. 160 pigs with an average initial body weight of 6.33 kilograms were allotted to four dietary treatments: either 0 mg/kg IQ, 90 mg/kg, 180 mg/kg, or 360 mg/kg IQ. This experiment was divided into three phases, phase one being day zero to eight, phase two being day eight to day 21, and phase three being day 21 to 34. Throughout the experiment, daily feed allotments were recorded along with individual pig weights on day zero, day eight, day 21, and day 34. Additionally, blood samples were collected on day eight, day 21, and day 34. Now moving on to the results from the experiment, first we will look at the blood characteristics. And what we observed was a quadratic increase in the total protein concentration of the blood in phase one along with a quadratic decrease in the plasma urea nitrogen in phase two and a quadratic increase in the plasma urea nitrogen in phase three. When looking at the total protein concentration in the plasma, a quadratic increase in phase one was observed with the greatest total protein in the plasma in the pigs fed the 180 mg/kg IQ diet. Additionally, when looking at the plasma urea nitrogen concentration in the plasma, a tendency for a linear increase was observed in both phases 2 & 3. Now moving on to the growth performance data, we first look at [(squeak: 2:28) the average] daily feed intake. And here we can see a quadratic decrease in phase 1 as well as a tendency for a quadratic decrease in the overall experimental period. Next, looking at average daily gain we also see a quadratic reduction in phase 1, with the lowest values for average daily feed intake and average daily gain both seen in the 180 mg/kg diet. Combining these values, we get the gain to feed ratio. And here we can see a quadratic reduction in the gain to feed ratio in phase 1 and a contrasting quadratic increase in the gain to feed ratio in phase 3, with the greatest gain to feed in the 180 mg/kg diet. However, overall there was no influence of IQ on the gain to feed ratio throughout the entire experimental period. In conclusion, IQ had no effect on overall growth performance of weanling pigs fed corn-soybean meal diets. However, IQ did increase the plasma urea nitrogen concentration, indicating increased amino acid absorption. Therefore, we hypothesize that supplementing diets with IQ increased amino acid absorption, meaning that the pigs absorbed more than the requirement and excreted the excess nitrogen. Thank you for listening. If you would like to learn more about this or other research conducted by our lab, please visit our website at nutrition.ansci.illinois.edu.