General Commentary on: Alternatives to Antibiotic Growth Promoters in Animals

General Commentary on: Alternatives to Antibiotic Growth Promoters in Animals

Recent studies have evaluated the impact of alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) such as phytogenic feed additives (PFAs) in vitro and in vivo. Zhou and colleagues studied the antibacterial properties of 30 herbs on pathogenic Gram-negative and positive bacteria (1). Thirteen of the 30 herbs exerted a significant effect against Escherichia coli ATCC 25922 (p < 0.01, n = 11 and p <...

Antibiotic Growth-Promoters in Food Animals

By Peter Hughes and John Heritage, University of Leeds, UK There has been a developing controversy surrounding the use of antibiotics as growth promoters for food animals. These drugs are used at low doses in animal feeds and are considered to improve the quality of the product, with a lower percentage of fat and a higher protein content in the meat. Other benefits of the use of antibiotic grow...

Phytobiotics: alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters in monogastric animal feeds

Phytobiotics represent a wide range of bioactive compounds that can be extracted from various plant sources. In recent years, some interesting and novel applications of phytobiotics in the production and well– being of monogastric animals have emerged, and these aspects are reviewed in the present paper. Recent studies at the University of New England indicate that water–soluble carbohydrate ex...

Alternatives to Growth Promoters

In pig production, the terms "growth promoter", "performance enhancer", and "digestive enhancer" include a diverse range of products ranging from simple chemicals (copper salts) to chemically produced antibacterial compounds (carbadox) to antibiotics (tylosin, avilamycin, salinomycin, virginiamycin). Most of the antibiotic group are produced during a fermentation process by yeasts, moulds, and ...

Antibiotic Growth Promoters in Poultry, and their Potential Alternatives