Use of Lemon Grass Oil as Feed Additive in Weanling Pig Diets

An experiment was conducted at Chiang Mai University to determine the use of lemon grass oil as additive in weanling pigs. 28 days old weaned piglets were randomly distributed into 5 groups of 6, 4, 5, 4 and 4 animals each in a completely randomised design (CRD). The piglets were housed in individual cages. Diet 1 (control diet) was a basal diet containing corn-soybean meal. Diet 2 was a basal diet supplemented with 0.75 g tetracycline /kg basal diet. diet 3, 4 and 5 were basal diets supplemented with lemon grass oil at 1, 2.5 and 5 ml/kg diet respectively.. Diets were formulated according to NRC (1998) requirements. The productive performance and faecal characteristics of the pigs were determined beginning at 7 ± 0.8 kg BW until 20 ± 0.8 kg BW. Average daily gain (ADG) and feed conversion ratio (FCR) of pigs fed diet 1 to 5 were 420, 390, 330, 320 and 380 g/d and 1.89, 1.88, 1.81, 1.87 and 1.73, respectively. There was no significant difference of ADG among treatments. The inclusion of lemon grass oil 5 ml/kg diet tended to improve FCR of piglets. The pigs fed control diet had higher average daily feed intake (ADFI) (p 0.05) in ADFI of pigs fed diet containing lemon grass oils (diet 3, 4 and 5). The faecal score (shape and colour) of the pigs fed diet 4 and 5 was better than in pigs fed other diets (p<0.05). The results suggest that lemon grass oil can substitute tetracycline as feed additive.