30/11/2022
What is probiotic and the relationship bewteen probiotic and antibiotic in animal farming
Animal feed provide necessary nutrients and energy for the livestock, but sometimes its not enough, in animal farming business, people also use feed additives for many productive purposes, such as improving feed quality, digestibility, animal performance and overall health.
This table compares some of the most popular feed additives, we can clearly see that all of them are targeting the gut, and probiotic has the most comprehensive functions with low cost, obviously the best choice. Probiotic is in fact, all around us in daily life, such as yogurt, wine, bread and so on, also used very broadly for agricultural and industrial purposes, but we will focus on one thing here - how we can use probiotic solutions to help animal farming business.
So, first things first, lets learn what is probiotic, here is a most accepted definition: “live microorganisms which when administered in a adequate amounts of beneficial microorganisms, confer a health benefit on the host. Some contain metabolites or add beneficial growth promoting factors, which have the functions of maintaining the micro-ecological balance of both internal and external environment of the plants, animal and human body, improving health and protect the environment.”Here are the key words, the effective probiotic should firstly be live, dead bacteria is no good; secondly, must be used in adequate amount, insufficient dosage will not work well; Third, it has to be beneficial bacteria, harmful or pathogenic bacteria is the enemy; Fourth, the core mechanism of probiotic is maintaining the balance of microflora, we know, everything in our world is about balancing, both physical and spiritual, all lives, relationships, the eco-system, and so on, just think about it, probiotic works the same way.
Next, I will talk about the relationship between anitbiotic and probiotic, the first thing we should know is these two are not good friends, because antibiotics will wipe out both good and bad bacteria in gut, and their mechanisms are very different, some would say “I prefer antibiotics, it’s necessary for me to avoid massive casualties when my livestock get sick, its very bad for business, so if I use antibiotic, I can’t use probiotic.” Well, its very much understandable but not 100% correct... massive loss of livestock is indeed devastating, especially for small farms, this is exactly where the probiotic can provide big help -- to prevent this from happening in the first place, by improving immunity and overall health, animals don’t easily get sick, or, don’t get too sick, so it would be much easier and less expensive for us to cure them. Furthermore, probiotic is in fact compatible with antibiotics, probioitcs help animals quickly back to health and recover from side effects caused by antibiotics, they can work by taking turns, normally few days gap. So, using antibiotics sometimes would be a necessary solution but probiotic is truly a better way. I have listed some key differences for probiotics and antibiotics, so we will have a clear understanding of the idea.
First, probiotics can be applied daily to improve or maintain overall health of the animals, where antibiotics are only used when sick.
Second, Probiotic is risk free, and almost all antibiotics have side effects.
Third, Probiotic is high value-added solution because it will increase the profitability of animal farming by improving productivity - higher growth rate, more and better meat&milk production, better egg laying rate, lower FCR and so on, farmers will save money on antibiotics. In the other hand, people use antibiotic to reduce the potential loss, like the fire fighters, no matter how fast they put the fire out, there would still be some losses. The best to do is to prevent the fire in the first place.
Fourth, Probiotic is environment friendly and also no drug residue, antibiotic in the other hand, the drug residue will stay in the meat and pass on to humans, making humans to develop drug resistance, when people get sick, the antibiotics will be less effective, and also create some super bacteria with very high drug resistance. This is actually a real world problem, more and more countries now start to have strict policies to control the usage of antibiotics in animal farming, some antibiotics are completely forbidden, everyone has been very keen to find alternatives for antibiotics, and probiotic solutions are becoming more and more accepted and the demand is soaring high around the world.
Fifth, Probiotic is multi-functional, where antibiotic often have one targeted function. We will discover the functions of probiotic very soon, let’s make a summary of the above story first: The glorious era of antibiotics will be gone and the future belongs to probiotics.
So, what do you think of probiotic and antibiotics, please share your comments with me, tell me your story of how probiotic benefits your animal farming business. In next video I will talk about the functions of probiotic in a manner which everybody can understand easily, thank you for watching, see you soon!
So what probiotics can do? The first function we are looking at is bacteriostasis and balancing the intestinal flora, there are 3 theories to explains how, but instead of telling a long scientific story, I prefer to explain to you in easy way : When animal gut is under attack by the pathogenic or harmful bacteria, we will send probiotic army to the war, when good bacteria enter the intestine, it will compete with bad bacteria, fighting for colonization space, oxygen and nutrients, meanwhile our super soldiers will produce anti-pathogenic substance to inhibit the growth of bad bacteria, so that the good bacteria will seize the dominant role in the intestinal tract and maintaining the balance of microflora. The key is we need to make sure sending enough well trained soldiers to win the war.
The second important function of probiotic is promoting growth. Probiotic strains can produce various beneficial metabolites such as enzymes, vitamins, organic acids and so on, these can promote digestion and absorption of feed nutrients, also help to increase the absorption area of intestinal tract. Moreover, probiotic can reduce the transformation of protein to harmful gases by inhibiting the putrefying bacteria, so that the protein can be better utilized by the host.
The third function of probiotic is improving immunity. Probiotics can promote the development of immune organs, enhance macrophage activity, affect antibody levels and activate specific immune response levels. Well there are many scientific researches and experiments to prove the theory, the mechanism of immune system is really complicated, I will come back to explain more of this in my future videos.
Probiotics is not feed, but can improve digestion and absorption of feed; its not medicine, but can prevent, control and recover from diseases. Probiotics has both biological function of medicine and nutrient composition of feed. Nowdays, probiotic solutions are becoming more and more accepted by the animal farming all around the world, some regions earlier than others, the trend is very clear, the prospects of probiotic is very promising. In my next video, I will talk about a rising super star in probiotic family - Clostridium Butyricum, to explore its outstanding features and what it can do to make animal farming easier.
