The measurement of volatile organic compounds in faeces of piglets as a tool to assess gastrointestinal functionality

Abstract

There is an increasing interest in developing innovative means to monitor animal health through precision farming. As part of this drive, we have targeted digestive health and in particular the microbiota. In this study, we investigated the effect of different dietary interventions in piglets, feeding these piglets with one of two different feeds (high protein and low protein). We then evaluated its effects by measuring the volatile organic compounds (VOC) that emanated from these faecal samples using various forms of Ion Mobility Spectrometry. Piglets were monitored for 19 days, with faecal samples collected on days 6, 12 and 19, providing a total of 69 samples. The statistical analysis att..