Alternatives to antibiotic growth promoters in rabbit feeding - a review

• Author(s): Falcão, Luísa ; Castro-Solla, Luís ; Maertens, Luc ; Marounek, Milan ; Pinheiro, Victor ; Freire, João Pedro ; Mourão, José Luís
• Date: 2020
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10348/1793
• Origin: Repositório da UTAD
• Subject(s): alternatives to dietary antibiotics; rabbit feeds
• Document Type: Article
• Language: English

Description

This review is focused on the most studied and developed substances which are commonly knownas alternatives to dietary antibiotics, particularly as far as rabbit feeds are concerned. After a reminder of thereason to be and success of antibiotic growth promoters, and why they lately came to be banned in theEuropean Union, we successively deal with probiotics, prebiotics, enzymes and organic acids. Data on rabbitsare, as expected, quite scarce when compared to species such as pigs and poultry. Nevertheless, theavailable performance results are discussed together with the possible mechanisms of action. Special mentionis made of the effects of these substances on digestibility and caecal activity.