Pork producers can no longer use antibiotics that are medically important in human medicine to promote growth in their swine herd. Antibiotics can now only be used to for the treatment, prevention and control of health issues, if those drugs are not medically important in human medicine.
If they are looking to improve performance or enhance growth in their herd, producers will need to turn to alternatives that may replace the boost once provided by antibiotics.
Nick Gabler, associate professor of animal science at Iowa State University, presented a session at the Iowa Pork Congress looking at published data of known antibiotic alternatives that may influence nursery pig growth. The antibiotic alternatives evaluated and discussed included prebiotics, probiotics, resistant starch/fiber, botanicals, organic acids, lysozymes, oligosaccharides, yeast, zinc and copper.
