Organic Acids Mixture as a Dietary Additive for Pigs—A Review

Abstract

Due to the increasing safety concerns about the risk of spreading antibiotic resistance in the environment, and the presence of chemical residues in animal products, using organic acids (OAs) to replace antibiotic in the diet of farm animals has increased considerably in recent years. It has been suggested that OAs could attribute to diverse elements such as antimicrobial activity, decreasing the pH of digesta particularly in the gastrointestinal tract (GIT), slowing feed transit in the GIT to maximize feed digestion and nutrient absorption, inducing enzyme secretion and activity in the small intestine, and providing nutrients to intestinal tissue. It has been reported that OAs mixture might be more effective than individual OAs due to the synergistic effects of different pKa values and have a broad-spectrum activity. In conclusion, this review showed that an OA mixture, which can improve nutrient digestibility and growth performance, modulate intestinal bacterial populations and improve gut health, as well as decreasing gas emission, can be used as alternative to antibiotic growth promoters. However, the results of OA mixtures are not always consistent, and the response to dietary OAs could be affected by the type of OAs, dosage, feed formula, and the age of animals. In this review, we will give an overview of the current use of OAs mixture in swine feed.

Effects of microencapsulated organic acids on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, fecal microbial counts, and blood profiles in weaning pigs

“…In this study, the ATTD of the DM at 2 and 4 weeks and the GE at 2 weeks increased when weaning pigs were fed diets containing 0.2 and 0.3% MOA. These results are similar to previous studies where dietary supplementation with 0.1% to 0.2% OA blends improved nutrient digestibility in weaning to finishing pigs [ 29 , 37 – 40 ]. These positive changes in nutrient digestibility were due to lowering the pH of the gastrointestinal tract, which improved the solubility of minerals [ 41 ].…”

Time for a Paradigm Shift in Animal Nutrition Metabolic Pathway: Dietary Inclusion of Organic Acids on the Production Parameters, Nutrient Digestibility, and Meat Quality Traits of Swine and Broilers

“…Table 1. Common organic acids involved in animal nutrition and their properties [16,18]. This review evaluates the response of swine and broilers to OAs supplementation of previous studies in terms of the growth production parameters, including feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio (FCR), nutrient digestibility, and meat quality traits.…”

Effects of Guava (Psidium guajava L.) Leaf Extract on the Metabolomics of Serum and Feces in Weaned Piglets Challenged by Escherichia coli

“…However, concerns about antimicrobial resistance, residue accumulation in animal products, and environmental pollution have led to a limited application of antibiotics as growth promoters (4,5). Due to these factors, searching for alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters, such as pro-and prebiotics, organic acids, enzymes, and plant extracts, have attracted more and more attention (5)(6)(7). Among the candidate alternatives to antibiotics, plant extracts appear to be one of the most widely accepted (8,9).…”