According to the FAO (2021), untreatable infections affect people, plants and animals worldwide, even with the use of the most powerful antimicrobial treatments. This occurs due to the resistance that has developed against the latter. Currently, the FAO, the Pan American Health Organization, the World Health Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health are working to guarantee the sustainability of agri-food systems.
Due to their dual purpose, antibiotics serve as drugs, and also as growth promoters, because they help control the pathogenic bacterial microbiota and generate greater use of feed nutrients, so there is a response in productive indicators. However, improper use and overdose in its supply leads to the formation of bacteria resistant to common antibiotics (Arenas and Moreno 2018, Barros 2018 and Mingmongkolchai and Panbangred 2018).
The European Community prohibited its inclusion in the diet for prophylactic purposes (European Parliament and Council 2003). In this context, nutritionists and specialists began researches to search for new nutritional additives that would be harmless to animals and humans, with effects similar to those of these drugs (Molina 2019). In the world, some studies have performed on the incorporation of additives in animal production, made with Bacillus spp. endospores of that have probiotic activity (Peet et al. 2020 and Raudez and García 2020).
Cuba is no stranger to the development of biological products with a marked probiotic effect. The Centro de Estudios Biotecnológicos, of Facultad de Ciencias Agropecuarias from Universidad de Matanzas and the Instituto de Ciencia Animal, worked on obtaining zootechnical additives, made from different microbial groups, among which the SUBTILPROBIO® zootechnical additive highlighted. This additive is considered a commercial product for veterinary use, composed of Bacillus subtilis endospores.
One of the main objectives of livestock production in Cuba is to achieve high food production to meet the growing needs of the population. Hence, this article intends to expose the positive results in some productive and health indicators, obtained from the inclusion of this zootechnical additive in different livestock categories in Matanzas territory, as a way to increase livestock production.
Materials and Methods
The study was developed at different times and in different livestock units of Matanzas territory (table 1). To measure the impact of the inclusion of SUBTILPROBIO® zootechnical additive, the same procedure was used in all the units. A completely random design was applied, with two treatments. That is: control group CG, basal diet (corn-soybean) and group I GI, basal diet + zootechnical additive SUBTILPROBIO®. The additive was prepared from the strains of Bacillus subtilis, subspecies subtilis C-31 and E-44, according to the methodology of Milián et al. (2017). To measure the effect of their inclusion, productive and health indicators were taken as measurable indicators. In the production units, antibiotics were not applied as growth promoters.
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Unidad Avícola de Ponedoras | Layers Leghorn line L33. | Güira | 300 birds/treatments | 109 ufc/g of concentrate, manually mixed |
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Baró Chiquito | 1 039 birds/treatments |
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Empresa Pecuaria Genética de Matanzas (EPGM) | Small rumiants | Los Quinientos | 15 calves/treatments | 109 ufc/kg of concentrate equivalent to 10mL/animal/d |
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Recría 308 | 18 calves/treatments |
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Unidad Porcina Gelpis | Piglets from breeders York- Land (YL), Large White-Landrace (LWxL), and male pigs Duroc Jersey y L-3534 |
200 piglets/treatments | 10 mL/ animal/d |
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Results and Discussion
There are dissimilar studies on the use of bacilli endospores in livestock production, in order to eliminate the use of antibiotics as growth promoters (Milián et al. 2021). The results of the inclusion of the SUBTILPROBIO® zootechnical additive in the diets of different livestock categories in Matanzas territory, allowed to observe improvements in productive and health responses, which translate indirectly into economic and environmental improvements, since there is no need to use drugs, hence, it could be said that this specific additive and in these categories showed an impact on livestock production in Matanzas.
Perez et al. (2012) when they evaluated this additive in Line L33 layers, reported an increase in egg production (10 033.51/ 8 959.60), higher than the control. This was translated into an improved health response. Similar were the results obtained by Milián et al. (2019), when they included the SUBTILPROBIO® additive in the diets for birds of this same category and evaluated the indicators live weight (1640.0 g/1585.0 g), intake (10780 kg DM), conversion (1.92/2.10), eggs production (15,540/15,397), cracked eggs (1,092/1,114) and disqualified (69/76). The health indicators mortality (1/4), viability (99.6/98.6 %) and death by pecking or cannibalism did not show differences between treatments.
These results allow concluding that the zootechnical additive SUBTILPROBIO®, incorporated in the diets for birds in this category, showed a positive effect on the productive and health parameters. This allowed an economic benefit of $16,110.00 and $2,145.00 in each productive unit, and also an environmental, due to the non-use of drugs in the poultry production under study.
Hernández (2012) evaluated the zootechnical additive SUBTILPROBIO® in small ruminants belonging to Los Quinientos unit from EPGM. To determine the probiotic effect, live weight and the incidence of diarrhea, pneumonia and mortality were measured. The results showed an increase in live weight of 119/110 kg with respect to the control group. The health indicators incidence of diarrhea 1/7, incidence of pneumonia -/2 and mortality -/4, showed differences with respect to the control for P≤ 0.05.
Silva (2013), in Recría unit # 308 (EPGM), evaluated the zootechnical additive SUBTILPROBIO® in small ruminants. The results showed an increase in the productive indicator live weight of 169/110 kg in relation to the control group. With regard to health indicators, the cited authors recorded the following values: total leukocytes (I/L) 8.98/7.7, lymphocytes (I/L) 75.5/70.1, segmented neutrophils (I/L) 33.23/29.75, hematocrit (g.L-1) 26.58/23.25, hemoglobin (g.L-1) 13.01/10.67, incidence of diarrhea 13/29 and mortality -/2.
From the economic point of view, the EPGM achieved an economic benefit in Los Quinientos unit of $1,755.00, and in Recría # 308 of $13,806.00. The results show the economic benefit of the inclusion of SUBTILPROBIO® additive in this category. As a consequence, there was a decrease in expenses for the use of medications and the income of higher profits due to the increase in live weight. For these reasons, it can be inferred that the application of the zootechnical additive SUBTILPROBIO® improves the economy of livestock industry.
Rondon et al. (2020a) evaluated the probiotic effect of the biopreparations PROBIOLACTlL® (Lactobacillus salivarius C-65), SUBTILPROBIO® (Bacillus subtilis E-44) and their mixture, on productive and health indicators in growing pigs. As a result, they verified that the additives and their mixture improved all the indicators. The evaluated biopreparations produced benefits in the animals, since they improved the eubiosis of the gastrointestinal tract, which contributed to the superiority (P < 0.05) in live weight (27.15 kg/25.59 kg), DMG (408.65 g/445.27 g) and weight gain (19.42 kg/16.36 kg) and feed conversion (2.44/2.90). In addition, the incidence of diarrhea decreased (8.57/67.14 %) in the treated animals. The economic benefit revealed an amount of $46,410.00. The results confirm the probiotic potential of these biopreparations, when applied to pigs during the growth stage.
The results showed in this study coincide with many results, regarding the use of sporulated zootechnical additives with a marked probiotic effect, which are currently applied in livestock production (Sosa et al. 2018, Rodríguez et al. 2019, Arteaga et al. 2020, Rondón et al. 2020b, Rondón et al. 2020c and Milián et al. 2021).
Conclusions
The results show the effectiveness of SUBTILPROBIO® zootechnical additive as an alternative in livestock production. This is associated with a group of action mechanisms of probiotics, including altered microbial population balance, enhancement of the intestinal immune barrier, particularly through secretory IgA response, and decreased intestinal inflammatory responses. In addition, what has been exposed shows the importance of applying good practices in all stages of the production of animal source food and the implications of biological safety on farms, in terms of preventing infections by improving hygiene and animal welfare.