Samruay Malithod, Yuthana Siriwathananukul, and Saowanit Kuprasert

pp. 301 - 310

Abstract

       The objective of this experiment was to study the effect of 0.2% antibiotic (ascomix-s®, one kilogram of which contains lincomycin hydrochloride 44 g and sulfamethazine 110 g) or 0.25% herbal formula PROVE 1, combined with five levels of Stevia supplementation in the diets on digestibility of pigs. Two
factors; 1) type of drug (0.2% antibiotic and 0.25% herbal formula PROVE 1) and 2) five Stevia levels (0,0.2, 0.4, 0.6 and 0.8%) were investigated and 10 dietary treatments were used in this study. Ten related growing crossbred (Large White x Landrace) barrow pigs (30±1.5 kg body weight) were raised in individual metabolism cages for three collecting periods (30, 40 and 50 kg body weight), each pig was fed one experimental diet throughout the collecting period.
        The results showed that pigs fed diet with either 0.2% antibiotic or 0.25% herbal formula PROVE 1 had similar digestibility of diet, crude protein (CP), fiber, ash and nitrogen free extract (NFE) (89.01 vs 87.83, 94.96 vs 94.23, 60.73 vs 59.03, 61.22 vs 60.44 and 93.28 vs 92.03%, respectively). Negligible differences were observed between 0 and 0.4% Stevia supplementation in diet, but levels showed better digestibility than the other levels of Stevia supplementation, and the diet with 0.4% Stevia supplementation had the highest
digestibility of diet, CP, fiber, ash and NFE (91.04, 96.43, 69.48, 70.47 and 94.07%, respectively). The diet with antibiotic combined with 0.4% Stevia had digestibility of diet, CP, fat and fiber better than the other levels of Stevia supplementation, especially digestibility of ash, which was significantly higher than that of diet with 0.2% Stevia, but not significantly different from the other levels of Stevia supplementation. A part of herbal formula PROVE1 combined with 0% Stevia had the highest digestibility of ash (72.90%), significantly higher than the other levels of Stevia supplementation, except the diet with herbal formula PROVE 1 combined with 0.4% Stevia supplementation, and had the highest digestibility of diet, CP, fat, fiber and NFE (91.54, 96.47, 93.37, 69.51 and 94.50%, respectively). In addition, the findings of this experiment suggest that supplementation of antibiotic, herbal formula PROVE 1, Stevia levels and the interaction of antibiotic and Stevia levels or herbal formula PROVE 1 and Stevia levels in diet had similar blood urea nitrogen (BUN) and biological value (BV) of pigs.