Oral challenge with E.coli K88 as a tool to assess growth and health performance in feeding trials of-weaned pigs

Abstract

The valuation of dietary solutions for weaning pigs is problematic. In field situations, an accurate control of replications is difficult and disturbing factors are hardly removed; in experimental farm, hygienic conditions are in general superior to practical farms. In the study of alternatives to in-feed antibiotics the challenge with K88 E.coli has been often proposed. The predisposition to this colibacillosis is, at least partially, genetically controlled and depends on the presence of intestinal receptors for the F4 fimbrial antigens of K88 E.coli...

Keywords

• weaning pig, Escherichia coli K88, feeding, immunity