An experiment was conducted to determine the effect of replacing conventional soybean meal (SBM, 46.55 % crude protein) with low oligosaccharide soybean meal (LOSBM, 53.16 % crude protein) on growth performance, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), intestinal morphology and digesta viscosity of early-weaned pigs. Thirty-two 19-day old pigs weighing about 6.9kg were assigned to individual pens based on a randomized complete block design. Four iso-nitrogenous nursery diets were fed ad libitum for the 14-day experimental period.

The treatments had no effect on average daily gain, daily feed intake, organ weights, intestinal length, ileal and jejunal crypt depths, or ileal villi height. However, jejuna villi height was greater (P = 0.01) in SBM diet and the concentration of BUN was higher (P = 0.01) in pigs fed LOSBM diet compared to the pigs fed diets containing SBM. Replacing SBM with LOSBM reduced (P =0.01) the viscosity of intestinal content. The researchers concluded that LOSBM was a suitable substitute for SBM, with no negative effects and improved digesta viscosity.