Yogurt, blessed with a lovely texture and probiotics credited with health benefits such as helping digestion and building stronger immune system, has always been favored by consumers. The team added to its mass appeal by developing a kind of yogurt that had the magic to cure pigs suffering from diarrhea with application of fewer antibitoics and even fewer treatment costs.

In China, when there is an outburst of explosive diarrhea or cross-infection among pigs, they will be injected with antibiotics. However, the antibiotic residues in pigs is seen as a vexing health concern. At present, antibiotic-free breeding technology using microbial preparation as substitute for antibiotics was developed at home and abroad. It could decrease the odds of infection by increasing the number of probiotics in the intestine to fight with pathogens, and producing antibacterial substances to reduce the number of pathogens.

Associate Professor Chen Zhengjun and his team from State Key Laboratory of Agricultural Microbiology, Huazhong Agricultural University, used high-density lactic acid bacteria fermentation technology to reduce the special yogurt costs to less than 50 yuan per liter. A piglet weighting 20 to 30 kg could enhance disease resistance by 0.5 ml -1 ml yogurt only. The cost of this yogurt for a pig was only 5 cents on average, which rendered it a smart choice cost-wise than average vaccine.

In October, 2016, the epidemic persecuting 300 pigs was brought under effective control by 2-liters vaccine developed by the lab. According to Chen, more efforts would be made to test the efficacy of the vaccine before it's put to good use in the market.

http://news.hzau.edu.cn/2017/0220/48318.shtml

(By Zou Xiaofang)