John O Doherty

Introduction:Post-weaning complications in piglets are characterized by heightened susceptibility to infection, diarrhoea, atrophy of small intestine structure and reduction in body weight. The ban on prophylactic antibiotics and environmental concerns with usage of excessive zinc demands for identification of safer alternatives to treat post-weaning complications. Feed additives that maintain hom ...

Introduction:Recent research has demonstrated that maternal dietary supplementation of LactoShield® (seaweed extract) had beneficial effects on the growth performance, immune status and gastrointestinal health of weanling pigs. The primary objective of the present study was to evaluate the effect of maternal dietary LactoShield® inclusion on the reproductive performance of sows and the pig ...

Improving feed efficiency (FE) reduces the environmental impact and increases the profitability of pig production. Despite the improvements in pig FE achieved in recent years1,2, it still takes~3.5 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of saleable pig meat2–4. Nutritional strategies can be implemented to improve FE; however, the impact of these strategies on the microbial composition of the g ...