• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.42 no.3
• /
• pp.223-229
• /
• 2015

This study was conducted to investigate the changes in the pig productivity after ban of antibiotics growth promoter in commercial pig farms. A total 74 pig farms that herd size is from less than 100 sows to more than 500 sows were selected for survey. Changes of pig productivity before/after ban of antibiotics were analyzed by comparing with our survey results and report of KPPA (Korean Pork Producers Association, 2013). In the results, no difference on pig productivity was observed by herd size among our survey farms. Live born piglets have been raised as time passes since 2003, and then it reach to 10.6 head per sow in 2012. The numbers of weaning piglet tended to increase, but sow turnover ratio was found to be a tendency to decrease after ban of antibiotics in our survey results. There was no effect of using antibiotics on mortality of pre- and post- weaning. Marketing per sow per year (MSY) does not be improved because the post-weaning mortality was maintained at a high level, despite live pig born and weaning piglet have increased after 2003. In conclusion, a ban of antibiotics growth promoter does not directly affect to pig productivity, but it needs the efforts to reduce the mortality of post-weaning for improvement of pig productivity. We suggest that this data will be useful to swine industry as the fundamental information.

• Animal Bioscience
• /
• v.35 no.8
• /
• pp.1109-1120
• /
• 2022

Antibiotics used to be supplemented to animal feeds as growth promoter and as an effective strategy to reduce the burden of pathogenic bacteria present in the gastro-intestinal tract. However, in-feed antibiotics also kill bacteria that may be beneficial to the animal. Secondly, unrestricted use of antibiotics enhanced the antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria. To overcome above problems, scientists are taking a great deal of measures to develop alternatives of antibiotics. There is convincing evidence that probiotics could replace in-feed antibiotics in poultry production. Because they have beneficial effects on growth performance, meat quality, bone health and eggshell quality in poultry. Better immune responses, healthier intestinal microflora and morphology which help the birds to resist against disease attack were also identified with the supplementation of probiotics. Probiotics establish cross-feeding between different bacterial strains of gut ecosystem and reduce the blood cholesterol level via bile salt hydrolase activity. The action mode of probiotics was also updated according to recently published literatures, i.e antimicrobial substances generation or toxin reduction. This comprehensive review of probiotics is aimed to highlight the beneficial effects of probiotics as a potential alternative strategy to replace the antibiotics in poultry.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.26 no.5
• /
• pp.876-882
• /
• 2016

Tylosin has been used as a livestock feed additive and antibiotic growth promoter for many years. However, the mode of action by which tylosin enhances animal growth is unclear. We used high-throughput sequencing of 16S rRNA genes to investigate the effects of tylosin as a feed additive on swine gut microbiota. No significant difference in the rate of weight increase was observed between control and tylosin-treated pigs during a 10-week feeding trial. However, tylosin-treated pigs showed rapid increases in the relative abundance of the phylum Firmicutes. Increases in Firmicutes species are associated with (so-called) obese-type gut microbiota. The abundance of species of four families of the phylum Firmicutes (Streptococcaceae, Peptococcaceae, Peptostreptococcaceae, and Clostridiaceae) correlated positively with host weight gain. The abundance of Streptococcaceae family bacteria was least affected by tylosin treatment. Distribution analysis of operational taxonomic units (OTUs) showed that both control and tylosin-treated pigs exhibited similar OTU alterations during growth. However, the tylosin-treated group showed distinctive alterations in gut microbiota when the host weighed approximately 60 kg, whereas similar alterations occurred at around 80 kg in the control group. Our results suggest that use of tylosin accelerates maturation of swine gut microbiota rather than altering its composition.

• Animal Bioscience
• /
• v.34 no.3_spc
• /
• pp.321-337
• /
• 2021

The global population has increased with swift urbanization in developing countries, and it is likely to result in a high demand for animal-derived protein-rich foods. Animal farming has been constantly affected by various stressful conditions, which can be categorized into physical, environmental, nutritional, and biological factors. Such conditions could be exacerbated by banning on the use of antibiotics as a growth promoter together with a pandemic situation including, but not limited to, African swine fever, avian influenza, and foot-and-mouth disease. To alleviate these pervasive tension, various immunomodulants have been suggested as alternatives for antibiotics. Various studies have investigated how stressors (i.e., imbalanced nutrition, dysbiosis, and disease) could negatively affect nutritional physiology in chickens. Importantly, the immune system is critical for host protective activity against pathogens, but at the same time excessive immune responses negatively affect its productivity. Yet, comprehensive review articles addressing the impact of such stress factors on the immune system of chickens are scarce. In this review, we categorize these stressors and their effects on the immune system of chickens and attempt to provide immunomodulants which can be a solution to the aforementioned problems facing the chicken industry.

• Journal of Animal Science and Technology
• /
• v.64 no.6
• /
• pp.1092-1104
• /
• 2022

Using antibiotics as growth promoter has been banned in poultry feed industry, thus various researchers try to seek an alternative to replace the growth-promoting antibiotics. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the growth performance via intestinal nutrient utilization and cecal microbial composition of broiler after dietary supplementation with most commonly using antibiotics, zinc bacitracin, and sophorolipid. A total of 180 1-day-old chicks were randomly assigned, and dietary treatment was as follow: CON, basal diet; ZB, 100 ppm of zinc bacitracin supplemented diet; and SPL, 250 ppm of sophorolipid supplemented diet. Their growth performance was evaluated and the samples of blood, small intestine, and ileal and cecal digesta were collected for biochemical, histological, and genomic analyses. The body weight and average daily gain of 7-day-old chicks were higher in ZB and those in overall experimental period were improved by ZB and SPL supplementation (p < 0.05). Their intestinal characteristics were not affected by dietary treatments in duodenum and ileum. Nonetheless, villus height was increased by SPL supplementation in jejunum (p < 0.05). Moreover, dietary SPL supplementation could down-regulate the expression level of pro-inflammatory cytokine, IL-1β (p < 0.05). mRNA levels of lipid and protein transporters did not differ among the treatments, however, relative expression levels of carbohydrate transporters, GLUT2 and SGLT1 were increased in broiler chicken's jejumum fed zinc bacitracin and sophorolipid supplemented diets (p < 0.05). Dietary zinc bacitracin supplementation could increase the population of Firmicutes in phylum level, and the portion of Turiciacter in genus level. On the other hands, the portion of Faecalibacterium was increased by dietary SPL supplementation compared to the other treatments. Our findings suggest that SPL supplementation improves growth performance through enhanced carbohydrate utilization capacity via improvement of gut morphological status and modulation of the cecal microbial population of broilers.

• Korean Journal of Agricultural Science
• /
• v.42 no.4
• /
• pp.389-396
• /
• 2015

This study was performed to investigate the opinions of various related-industries on ban of antibiotics growth promoters (AGPs) in commercial mixed feed. The answers on a total of 21 questions were summarized by response number and percentage. 93% of those surveyed were in agreement of a ban of dietary AGPs. The agreement reasons were the livestock safety (61.5%), the reduction of antibiotic use (23.1%), and decrease of antibiotic-resistant bacteria (11.5%). The negative effects expected by the ban of AGPs were poor growth performance (44.2%), elevated disease emergence (31.4%), increasing the feed cost (18.6%), and quality degradation of livestock (5.8%). As the efficient plans for decline of AGPs use, the feeding environment improvement was the highest with 43%, and farmer training and the consolidation inspection of residual substance on antibiotics in livestock product was 27.9% and 22.1%, respectively. 46.5% of respondent are considering the modification of feed spec and 39.5% of those surveyed have staged a modified feed spec. In conclusion, livestock related-industries approve a ban of AGPs, and they assert that the policy support, improvement of management and environment in the farm, providing technology from related-industries are multiply essential for a stable settlement of a ban policy of AGPs.

• Food Science of Animal Resources
• /
• v.36 no.5
• /
• pp.567-576
• /
• 2016

Poultry industry has always been a dynamic and integral part of national economies in many countries. Economic losses incur especially in large-scale rearing facilities, often attributed to the deterioration of environmental conditions, poultry exposure to stressors and development of diseases. While antibiotics have been commonly used for prophylactic purposes and as growth stimulants, extensive documentation of antimicrobial resistance among pathogenic bacteria due to indiscriminate utilization of antibiotic in the industry has led to public and governmental outcries. Elimination of antibiotics from poultry production has thus encouraged intensive search for alternatives. In this review, we discuss the immense potential of probiotics to fill the gap as alternative growth promoters and evidences of beneficial effects of probiotic application in poultry production.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
• /
• v.25 no.4
• /
• pp.431-438
• /
• 2015

Ever since the ban on antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs), the livestock death rate has increased owing to pathogenic bacterial infections. There is a need of developing AGP alternatives; however, the mechanisms by which AGP enhances livestock growth performance are not clearly understood. In this study, we fed 3-week-old swine for 9 weeks with and without AGPs containing chlortetracycline, sulfathiazole, and penicillin to investigate the effects of AGPs on swine gut microbiota. Microbial community analysis was done based on bacterial 16S rRNA genes using MiSeq. The use of AGP showed no growth promoting effect, but inhibited the growth of potential pathogens during the early growth stage. Our results showed the significant increase in species richness after the stabilization of gut microbiota during the post-weaning period (4-week-old). Moreover, the swine gut microbiota was divided into four clusters based on the distribution of operational taxonomic units, which was significantly correlated to the swine weight regardless of AGP treatments. Taxonomic abundance analysis indicated a negative correlation between host weight and the abundance of the family Prevotellaceae species, but showed positive correlation to the abundance of the family Spirochaetaceae, Clostridiaceae_1, and Peptostreptococcaeae species. Although no growth performance enhancement was observed, the use of AGP inhibited the potential pathogens in the early growth stage of swine. In addition, our results indicated the ecological succession of swine gut microbiota according to swine weight. Here, we present a characterization of swine gut microbiota with respect to the effects of AGPs on growth performance.

• Asian-Australasian Journal of Animal Sciences
• /
• v.23 no.8
• /
• pp.1057-1065
• /
• 2010

Two experiments were conducted to compare the effects of feeding a newly-developed rare earth mineral-yeast product, zinc oxide (ZnO) or antibiotics on the performance, nutrient digestibility and serum parameters of weanling pigs. In experiment 1, 150 crossbred barrows (24 d old and 6.28 kg BW) were fed one of five dietary treatments consisting of an unsupplemented basal diet or the basal diet supplemented with antibiotics (33 ppm tiamulin and 100 ppm chlortetracycline), ZnO (1,500 or 2,500 ppm) or 0.1% peptide-bound rare earth mineral-yeast. In experiment 2, 576 crossbred barrows (28 d old and 7.20 kg BW) were fed the same diets as those used in experiment 1 modified only by the addition of 1.0% Celite 545 to all diets as a digestibility marker. However, the negative control was not included. In experiment 1, weight gain was significantly lower (p<0.05) for pigs fed the negative control than for pigs fed diets supplemented with antibiotics, ZnO, or rare earth mineral-yeast. Pig performance did not differ between pigs fed the four supplemented diets. In experiment 2, there were no differences in performance between pigs fed diets supplemented with antibiotic, ZnO or rare earth mineral-yeast. The digestibility of dry matter, crude protein, calcium, phosphorus and energy were significantly (p<0.01) higher on the rare earth mineral-yeast diet than on diets supplemented with ZnO. In addition, pigs fed the diet supplemented with rare earth mineral-yeast had significantly (p<0.05) higher digestibility of histidine, lysine, threonine and valine than pigs fed the ZnO supplemented diets. Digestibility coefficients for pigs fed antibiotics tended to be intermediate to those of pigs fed rare earth mineralyeast or ZnO. In conclusion, the performance of pigs fed rare earth mineral-yeast was basically equal to that of pigs fed antibiotics or ZnO indicating that rare earth mineral-yeast can be successfully used as a growth promoter in diets fed to nursery pigs. The effects of rare earth mineral-yeast appeared to be mediated through improvements in nutrient digestibility.

• Animal Bioscience
• /
• v.35 no.4
• /
• pp.587-595
• /
• 2022

Objective: The present study was conducted to evaluate the effects of dietary supplementation with Bifidobacterium animalis, Agave fructans, and symbiotic of both encapsulated on growth performance, feed efficiency, blood parameters, and immune status in broiler chickens, and to compare these with diets including antibiotic growth promoters and without additives. Methods: A comparative experimental study was carried out with 135 male Ross 308 broiler chickens. Each trial was divided into 5 equal groups. Control group (CON) received a standard diet without growth promoter; GPA, a standard diet with colistin sulfate and zinc bacitracin (0.25 g/kg of feed); PRE, a standard diet with 1% Agave fructans; PRO, a standard diet with Bifidobacterium animalis (11.14±0.70 log CFU/g); SYM, a standard diet with B. animalis and Agave fructans. Results: A significant decrease in food consumption was found for the GPA, PRE, and SYM, compared to the CON group. The results show a better feed conversion index in PRE and GPA with respect to the CON group with the highest conversion index. Interestingly, the weight of the gastrointestinal tract shows a statistically significant difference between GPA and PRE groups. Moreover, the length of the gastrointestinal tract of the GPA group was less than the PRE group. In the total leukocyte count, there was a statistically significant increase in the GPA group compared to the CON, PRE, and PRO groups, and the heterophiles-lymphocytes index was lower in PRO. Regarding the cytokines, interleukin 10 (IL-10) decreased in PRO compared to CON and PRE, while IL-1β increased in the SYM group. Conclusion: Alternative treatments were shown to achieve similar productive results as growth-promoting antibiotics and showed improvement over diet without additives; however, they have immunomodulatory properties and improved the development of the gastrointestinal tract compared to the treatment of growth-promoting antibiotics.