ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE October 2025 47 biota, reinforcing the gut barrier, and enhancing immune resilience. While solutions such as probiotics, organic acids, and plant extracts are widely explored, seaweed is emerging as one of the most promising tools — uniquely combining a natural origin, renewable supply, and a remarkable diversity of bioactive compounds that directly support gut health. EVIDENCE FROM POULTRY AND SWINE In poultry, necrotic enteritis (NE) remains one of the most costly intestinal diseases, particularly as the industry reduces antibiotic use. In a controlled NE challenge, birds receiving a seaweed-based blend (OceanFeed™ Poultry) showed markedly better outcomes than the challenge control group. Mortality rates were reduced, lesion scores improved, and birds displayed higher feed intake and body weight gain during the finisher phase. Importantly, compensatory growth was observed post-challenge, demonstrating that seaweed supplementation not only supported resilience during stress but also recovery afterward (Figure 1A, 1B and 1C). These findings are consistent with previous reports showing that sulphated polysaccharides from seaweeds, such as fucoidan and ulvan, can reduce Clostridium perfringens colonization, enhance gut integrity, and modulate inflammatory responses in broilers (Kulshreshtha et al., 2014; Blue et al., 2024; Li et al., 2025). Together, the trial data and scientific literature highlight the value of seaweed blends as a functional, antibiotic-free strategy to control gut health challenges in poultry production. In swine, gut health is especially critical during the post-weaning period, when dietary stress and immature immunity often trigger diarrhoea and growth setbacks, as well as in reproductive performance of sows. In a study, supplementation with 1.50 1.48 1.46 1.44 1.42 1.40 1.38 Challenge Control Negative Control Feed Conversion Ratio OceanFeed™ Poultry 1.60 1.58 1.56 1.54 1.52 1.50 1.48 1.46 Challenge Control Negative Control Liveweight Gain (kg/bird) OceanFeed™ Poultry 0.64 0.62 0.60 0.58 0.56 0.54 0.52 0.50 Challenge Control Negative Control Weight Gain (kg/bird) OceanFeed™ Poultry (A) Feed conversion ratio (FCR) of broilers under negative control, challenge control and OceanFeed™ Poultry supplementation (B) Liveweight gain per bird (C) Weight gain per bird Figure 1A Figure 1B Figure 1C
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