{
  "abstract": "To address post-weaning problems in piglets fed diets without pharmaceutical doses of zinc oxide (ZnO), the effect of reducing dietary acid-binding capacity (ABC) on weaned pig growth performance and diarrhea prevalence was evaluated. Immediately after weaning, 1445 pigs [body weight (BW), 5.04 kg] were fed five test diets during phase 1 (d 0 to 7) and 2 (d 7 to 21), respectively. All pigs were fed a common diet during phase 3 (d 21 to 42). All diets were wheat and barley based. The dietary treatments included a high-Zn diet with pharmaceutical levels of ZnO (3000 mg/kg of Zn for phase 1, 2000 mg/kg of Zn for phase 2) and four low-Zn (150 mg/kg of Zn) treatments with gradually reduced ABC4 from 326 to 150 meq H⁺/kg for phase 1 and 364 to 202 meq H⁺/kg for phase 2. The gradual reduction of dietary ABC was achieved by replacing enzymatically-treated soybean meal with a low-ABC soy protein concentrate, replacing limestone with calcium formate, and adding formic and benzoic acid. All diets maintained a constant net energy (NE; 2.5 Mcal/kg for phase 1, 2.46 Mcal/kg for phase 2), standardized ileal digestible (SID) lysine (1.43% for phase 1, 1.37% for phase 2), and calcium (0.55% for phase 1, 0.6% for phase 2). Removing pharmaceutical doses of ZnO from weaned pig diets for phase 1 + 2 reduced (P < 0.01) average daily feed intake (ADFI) by 73 g, average daily gain (ADG) by 80 g, BW by 1.64 kg, and gain-to-feed (G:F) ratio from 0.786 to 0.712, and increased (P < 0.01) diarrhea prevalence by 1.9-fold during the first 21 days. Reducing ABC4 in low-Zn diets for phase 1 + 2 linearly increased (P < 0.05) ADFI by 17 g, ADG by 22 g, and BW by 0.44 kg from the high to very low ABC diet, and linearly and quadratically increased (P < 0.05) G:F that plateaued at 0.769 for the low-ABC diet. The diarrhea prevalence in phase 2 was linearly and(or) quadratically decreased (P < 0.05) due to the reduction of ABC4 for low-Zn diets. Overall (d 0 to 42), the ADFI, ADG, and final BW were reduced (P < 0.05) due to the removal of pharmaceutical ZnO supplementation. However, pigs fed low-Zn diets with reducing ABC linearly increased (P < 0.05) ADFI, ADG, and quadratically increased (P < 0.05) G:F. In conclusion, removing pharmaceutical ZnO supplementation reduced growth performance and increased diarrhea prevalence during the first 3 weeks after weaning. Reducing dietary ABC of weaned pig diets partly recovered the loss in growth performance and alleviated diarrhea prevalence.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Department of Agricultural, Food and Nutritional Science, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2P5, Canada.",
    "Gowans Ltd, Wainwright, AB T9W 1L2, Canada.",
    "dsm-firmenich, Animal Nutrition & Health, Pendergrass, GA 30567, United States."
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 6,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "L Zhu"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "L F Wang"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "J L Landero"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "J R Bergstrom"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        1
      ],
      "name": "M G Young"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "R T Zijlstra",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-1875-8453"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f3v8x4wjgqztz.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.1093/tas/txag162",
  "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13718591",
  "id": "f3v8x4wjgqztz",
  "issns": [
    "2573-2102"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42960219",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY-NC",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-NC",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "heading",
      "AcademicSubjects/SCI00960"
    ],
    [
      "heading",
      "Non Ruminant Nutrition"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "1103|Animal Nutrition and Physiology"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7222227673",
  "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13718591?pdf=render",
  "pmcid": "PMC13718591",
  "pmid": "42960219",
  "published": "2026-10-15",
  "publisher": "Oxford University Press",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f3v8x4wjgqztz.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-01T00:20:52Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42960219",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42960219"
    },
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-02T12:22:35Z",
      "native_id": "PMC13718591",
      "source": "pmc",
      "url": "https://doi.org/10.1093/tas/txag162"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:1103|Animal Nutrition and Physiology",
      "subfield": "zoology-behaviour"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Reducing dietary acid-binding capacity of low-zinc diets increased growth performance of weaned pigs in a commercial environment.",
  "title_text": "Reducing dietary acid-binding capacity of low-zinc diets increased growth performance of weaned pigs in a commercial environment.",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-02T12:22:35Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/f3v8x4wjgqztz",
  "venue": "Translational animal science",
  "versions": []
}