Abstract

An experiment was carried out for a period of 131 days in forty weaned (twenty castrated male and twenty female) Large White Yorkshire x Desi piglets to study the effect of dietary supplementation of probiotic, prebiotic and synbiotic on carcass characteristics, plasma biochemical parameters and faecal microbial count. The piglets were divided into four groups with five replicates of two piglets in each replicate. The piglets were randomly allotted to the four dietary treatments, T1 (control ration as per NRC, 1998), T2 (control ration + 0.2 per cent yeast as probiotic), T3 (control ration + 0.2 per cent mannan oligosaccharide (MOS) as prebiotic) and T4 (control ration + 0.2 per cent of synbiotic containing 0.1 per cent yeast and 0.1 per cent MOS) using completely randomized design. The results of the study indicated that all the four dietary treatments were similar (P>0.05) in carcass characteristics and plasma biochemical parameters. However, the faecal microbial load was reduced (P<0.05) by synbiotic supplementation showing lowered values for total viable count and coliform count. Results concluded that synbiotic at 0.2 per cent level (0.1 per cent yeast + 0.1 per cent MOS) can be used as beneficial feed additive for maintaining healthy gut microflora in crossbred pigs.

Keywords : Crossbred pigs, Probiotics, Prebiotics, Synbiotics, Carcass characteristics, Plasma biochemical profile