Feed & Additive Magazine Issue 4 May 2021

SPECIAL STORY 32 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE May 2021 A FUTURE WITHOUT ZINC OXIDE “By 2022, EU farmers will have to be prepared to grow their piglets without using medicinal levels of zinc and in the next few years, we can expect producers worldwide to have to start looking for alternatives to zinc oxide as seen in the trend of international AGP ban.” T raditional methods of controlling post-weaning diarrhoea have been using zinc oxide at high doses (2500-3000mg/kg feed) together with antibiot- ics. While there are many benefits of using zinc oxide linked to improving gut health, there are more nega- tive effects such as increasing antibiotics resistance, en- couraging the selection of multi resistant E.coli strains, decreasing absorption of macro- and micro elements, decreasing the effectiveness of organic acids and having heavy metal effect on the environment thus negatively affecting the agriculture and aquaculture industry. To- gether with the ban of antibiotics and the coming of medicinal zinc oxide ban, time is running out to find an alternative to zinc oxide. A ban of medicinal dose of zinc oxide in piglet will come into force in Europe starting June 2022. This means that zinc oxide will no longer be allowed as a veterinary product but is still able to be used as a feed additive at a maximum level of 150ppm to meet the daily zinc requirements of piglets according to the Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2016/1095. In China, medicinal use of zinc oxide has also been restricted to 1600ppm in the first two weeks post weaning since July 2018 and in-feed zinc is only allowed to a maximum of 110ppm. By 2022, EU farmers will have to be prepared to grow their piglets without using medicinal levels of zinc and in the next few years, we can expect producers world- wide to have to start looking for alternatives to zinc oxide as seen in the trend of international AGP ban. PIGLETS POST WEANING DIARRHOEA (PWD) Piglets post weaning diarrhoea (PWD) is usually bacterial microbial scours and/or nutritional scours and remains a big problem for most swine farms worldwide. In severe cases, PWD increases piglet mortality causing direct economic impact to the farm. There is no doubt that a combination of zinc oxide and antibiotics is by far the most effective solution against PWD, but with the coming of medicinal zinc oxide ban and the international AGP ban, a possible alternative to medicinal zinc oxide and antibiotics for PWD would be a combination of feed additives – bu- tyric acid derivatives and hydrolysable tannin. BUTYRIC ACID DERIVATIVES Butyric acid is well known for its beneficial effects on gut health, development and maintaining gut in- Kayla Wong Technical Specialist Manuka Biotech