Administration of loperamide and addition of wheat bran to the diets of weaner pigs decrease the incidence of diarrhoea and enhance their gut maturation.

The influence of fibre inclusion and transit time regulation on the performance, health status, microbial activity and population, physico-chemical characteristics of the hindgut digesta and intestinal morphology in early weaned pigs were examined. For these experiments, wheat bran (WB) was used as fibre source and loperamide as a drug (LOP) to increase the digesta transit time. In Expt 1, a total of 128 early weaned pigs were randomly distributed in a 2 x 2 factorial combination of WB inclusion (0 v.