Effect of several plant products on prevention of E. coli adhesion in the gastrointestinal tract of weaned piglets

Summary

A challenge experiment was carried out which comprised six treatment groups each consisting of 12 individually housed piglets. Each group received one of the following pelleted diets: 1) Basal Diet (BD; Negative control); 2) BD + Yeast product (Positive control, 2.5 g/kg diet); 3) BD + Product SW 7 (25 g/kg diet); 4) BD + Product SW11 (25 g/kg diet) 5) BD + Sesame seed expeller (25 g/kg diet); 6) BD + Thyme/Carvacrol (Origanum spp.; 1.0 g/kg diet). The choice of the products used in the first five treatment groups was based on the results of an in vitro study by Becker et al. (2006), and comprised a range of the in vitro adhesion capacity to E. coli K88+ from high to low. The Thyme/Carvacrol treatment was carried out on request of the Dutch Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality. This challenge experiment showed that there was a substantial difference in effect of several plant products in the diet on response of E. coli infected pigs