The study was approved by the local state office of occupational health and technical safety ‘Landesamt für Gesundheit
und Soziales, Berlin’ (LaGeSo Reg. Nr. 0347/09).
Sixteen purebred landrace sows were allocated into either control (CON, n = 8) or EF treatment(n = 8) atfour weeks before
parturition. They were kept under similar conditions but in different buildings in order to prevent cross contamination.
Pregnant sows were housed in group pens until 7 d before expected parturition and then moved to farrowing pens with
straw bedding. Farrowing was notinduced and cross fostering was accomplished to balance litter sizes. For tissue and digesta
sampling from piglets at different time points, four animals (2 male, 2 female) from sows with litter sizes of 10 to 13 piglets
were identified and ear-tagged at 7 d of age. Piglets of either CON or EF were kept with their dams until weaning at the
age of 26 ± 2 days. A total of 112 piglets were included in the experiment. Room temperature during the nursery period
was kept at 23 ± 2 ◦C. After weaning, piglets of different feeding groups were kept in commercial flat deck pens in different
buildings with two animals per pen until 54 d of age. Body weight (BW) and feed intake were recorded on a weekly basis and
average daily gain (ADG), average daily feed intake (ADFI) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) were calculated. Fecal quality was
monitored using a subjective scoring system ranging from 1 (entirely liquid) via 3 (normal) to 5 (hard pellets) and scoring
was performed every day after the morning meal.