We investigated the effect of probiotics from anaerobic microflora with prebiotics (synbiotics) on growth performance, noxious gas emission and fecal pathogenic bacteria populations in growing pigs. The basal diet, which contained approximately 25% corn, 24% whey, 12% wheat and 12% soybean meal, was supplemented alternatively with 0.15% antibiotics (US diet), prebiotics and 0.2% probiotics from anaerobic bacteria (BS diet), yeast (YS diet), mold (MS diet) or compounds (CS diet). One hundred and fifty pigs were fed an experimental diet for 15 days. Although the growth performance was not affected by supplemental synbiotics, the BS group showed higher dry matter and crude protein digestibility. The BS group decreased fecal ammonia and amine gas emissions, and increased fecal acetate gas emission compared with the US group. All synbiotics groups decreased in fecal propionate gas emission. Fecal Escherichia coli population was lower in the synbiotics groups than in the US group. Therefore, the results of the present study suggest that synbiotics exert similar effects with antibiotics on the nutrient digestibility and fecal microflora composition in growing pigs. Moreover, synbiotics can also decrease the fecal noxious gas emission in growing pigs.
© 2011 The Authors. Journal compilation © 2011 Japanese Society of Animal Science.