Background:

Forage and feedstuff technologies with additives contributed to more efficient nutrition of herbivores.

Aim.

To evaluate the microbial content of feces from covies fed with forages and feedstuffs containing various levels of oregano.

Materials and methods:

This paper comprised two studies, one on El Romeral Farm, Guachapala Canton, the University of Cuenca, located on S 2o45’54”, W 78o42’58”, 2 254 m above sea level; and another at Molihers food processing factory, in Ochoa Leon, on S 2o49’48”, W 78o59’12”, 2 600 m above sea level. The control (T1) consisted of feeds for covies (Molihers); the other treatment (T2) was based on Phytogenics, at a rate of 2 kg/ton. Treatment 3 (T3), used phytogenics (3 kg/ton); whereas treatment 4 (T4) contained phytogenics (5 kg/ton). all the treatments contained 13.5% protein. A completely randomized experimental design was used, along with one-way ANOVA. The microbiological composition of feces was measured.

Results:

The fecal bacterial burden was reduced (P <0.05) using oregano, in comparison to the control.

Conclusions:

The nutrition of covies using alfalfa and feeds containing phytogenic additives such as oregano at 3 and 4 kg/t doses of the feed proved effective, the bacterial and parasitic counts in the feces were reduced due to the organic principles in the oregano supplemented.