Effects of antibacterial peptides in non-antibiotic feeds on the productivity of growing pigs

The objective of this study was to evaluate growth performance of finishing pigs fed diets with two antibiotics or fed with organic originated supplements. A total of 48 crossbred weaned piglets were randomly assigned into four treatments and the study was conducted in 108 days. Each treatment had 06 replicates and 2 piglets (1 male and 1 female) per replicate. Those organic originated supplements included phytogenic extracts, organic acid, probiotics or new preparation of anti-bacterial peptides (trade name Halor Tid). The treatment I: pigs were only fed basal diet without antibiotics supplements or other organics feed additives (Negative control). Treatment II: pigs were fed with two antibiotics including colistin 1% and BMD 10% in order to prevent E. coli and Clostridium perfringens infection (Positive control). Pigs in treatment III were fed with a combination of phytogenic extracts, organic acid and probiotics whereas pigs in treatment IV were fed with a combination of phytogenic extracts, organic acid and anti-bacterial peptides. The results showed that the performance parameters such as body weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR) and issues of diarrhea and mortality were the worst in the treatment I; whereas these performance parameters in the treatment III or in treatment IV were better than those in treatment II although this difference was not statistically significant at P > 0.05. Besides, the feed cost per kg of live weight of pigs in treatment III and treatment IV was significantly lower than that in treatment I and II.