Antibiotic Growth Promoters  

The approaching ban of Antibiotic Growth Promoters

From the 1st January 2006, Antibiotic Growth Promoters (AGPs), will be banned from use in the EU. These include Avilamycin (MaxusTM), Monensin sodium, Salinomycin sodium and Flavophospholipol. AGPs are being banned from use due to the concern that there is increasing resistance to antibiotics in both animal and human medicine.

There is apprehension that the removal of AGPs from pig diets will reduce performance by decreasing growth rates and increasing mortality. There is also worry that the costs to compensate for the loss of performance will be high.

Results from other countries where AGPs have already been banned have also added to the speculation that removal might cause some significant problems. For example in Denmark and Sweden, growth rates decreased and herd post-weaning diarrhoea and mortality increased due to the AGP removal. It is believed however that these problems were mainly due to inefficient planning. Knowledge from these other countries can be put to use to ensure that the same problems do not occur in Britain.

The best advice is to plan the removal of AGPs from farms, as waiting until January 1st may increase the risk of problems. A-One Feeds have already taken the first steps by removing all AGP products from their piglet feeds. Not only will this allow for adjustment to new feeds but also ensures that there is no AGP containing feed on farms after the ban.

A-One Feeds also has invaluable experience in supplying feed to the Danish market, where AGP have been banned since 1998. With the inclusion of ALPHA 4 to their diets, A-One Feeds believe that the removal of AGPs from their piglet diets will not have any negative effect on piglet performance.

A-One Feeds approach to the removal of AGPs:

The inclusion of our new additive, ALPHA 4 – a unique blend of essential oils, acids and enzymes will help boost piglet performance.

Diets containing ALPHA 4 have been tested in our research facility and have achieved extremely positive performance results compared with diets containing AGP’s, the results are shown below.

Trial results from A-One’s Trial Unit 2005 - AGP vs. ALPHA 4

	No AGP	AGP	ALPHA 4
Total no. pigs:	118	60	60
Average weight in (kg):	7.58	8.0	8.0
Average weight out (kg):	20.1	21.2	21.1
Average gain/pig (kg):	12.7	13.2	13.2
Average D.L.W.G (g/day):	452.6	472.6	469.6

Comments:

 - No AGP in the diet caused a lower D.L.W.G.

 - Inclusion of ALPHA 4 increased D.L.W.G compared with the AGP free diet.

 - The ALPHA 4 diets average weight gain equalled that of the AGP diet.

 Trial unit manager observation:

The manager noted that the pigs on the ALPHA 4 treatment appeared to show a healthier bloom when compared to the other treatments.