Abstract

A study was conducted out for a period of 131 days in forty weaned crossbred (Large White Yorkshire x Desi) piglets to study the effect of dietary supplementation of probiotic, prebiotic and synbiotic on growth and utilisation of nutrients. The piglets were divided into four groups with five replicates having two piglets in each replicate and were randomly allotted to 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) following completely randomized design. The findings of the study indicated that all the four dietary treatments had similar (P>0.05)  average daily gain and digestibility of nutrients. However, the animals fed diet supplemented with synbiotic had better body weight gain at second and third fortnight. The cumulative feed conversion efficiency of synbiotic supplemented group was higher (P<0.05) throughout the experimental period except for fourth and fifth fortnight. 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 in growing crossbred pigs.

Keywords : Crossbred pigs, Probiotics, Prebiotics, Synbiotics, Growth characteristics, Nutrient digestibility