Evaluating alternatives to zinc oxide or carbadox in nursery pig diets

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2019-05-09

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Antibiotics are commonly included in nursery pig diets to improve overall health. However, there is increasing regulatory pressure from consumers and limited research on the inclusion/impact of antibiotics. The objective of this experiment was to evaluate alternatives to zinc oxide or carbadox in nursery pig diets. Three hundred and sixty pigs (DNA 200 x 400, 5.4 ± 0.07 kg BW) were fed one of six treatments for 35d. Diets were fed in three phases: phase 1 was fed treatment diets (d0 to 7), phase 2: treatment diets (d8 to 19) and phase 3 were fed a common diet (d20 to 35). Diets included: 1) control (no ZnO or carbadox); 2) 50 g/ton carbadox; 3) 0.4% phase 1: 3,000ppm ZnO and phase 2: 1,500ppm ZnO; 4) 1% blend of C6:C8:C10 (medium chain fatty acids); 5) 1% Feed energy R2 (Feed Energy Corp, Des Moises IA); 6) 1% FORMI GML (ADDCON, Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Germany). Pens and feeders were weighed weekly. Data were analyzed using the GLIMMIX procedure on SAS (SAS Inst. Cary, NC) with pen as the experimental unit. Differences in overall treatments (d 0 to 19) resulted in an increase in ADG(P<0.0001) among treatments that consisted of ZnO, and carbadox, along with differences in an increase in ADFI(P=0.0004) resulting in improved from treatments, ZnO, carbadox and 1% FORMI GML with others being intermediate. There were no detectable differences of dietary treatments on pig overall G:F (P>0.05). In summary, MCFA-based additives have limited impact on pig feed efficiency when fed any of the six treatment diets. However, pigs fed ZnO had an increase in ADG and ADFI than those fed other dietary treatments.

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Spring 2019

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