PRINT-AROME® AN ALLY AGAINST ZINC OXIDE WITHDRAWAL

Last June 2022, the European Union withdrew zinc oxide from the market. As is well known, the main use of zinc oxide has been to prevent post-weaning diarrhea and as a growth promoter. This new regulation has forced the pig industry to rethink its strategy and find alternatives to replace this additive without affecting farm performance. One option that exists in the market to mitigate the effects of weaning in piglets are essential oils, between other alternatives to change and improve pre and post-weaning management on farms.

In order to mitigate the challenges faced by piglets during weaning, Norel developed Print-Arome®, a blend of essential oils that generates an imprinting effect in piglets. This effect reduces weaning stress, stimulates initiation to solid feed, and improves piglet performance and welfare. It should be noted that in some of the tests carried out, Print-Arome® had an impact on the incidence of post-weaning diarrhea Oddo et al., 2015 and Canal et al., 2019. The aim of the most recent trial, published in the 2019 ASAS, was to evaluate the effect of prenatal and postnatal exposure to Print-Arome® on performance parameters and diarrheas after 2 weeks post-weaning. Despite the non-significant differences in performance parameters, the most important result of this study was the reduction in the incidence of post-weaning diarrhea. The incidence of diarrhea was recorded twice a day and calculated using the percentage of pens positive with diarrhea over the total period of observations carried out. Animals from the Print-Arome® group (TT) group had significantly lower incidence of diarrhea from 0 to 14 days post-weaning. Diarrhea was recorded on 4.7b% of the observations (TT group), being significantly lower (P≤0.001) than the animals from the Control group (CC) (10.8a%).

The results obtained with the different tests performed with Print-Arome® not only support the imprinting effect of Print-Arome® also show how it significantly reduced the incidence of post-weaning diarrhea. So, we can conclude that Print-Arome® could be an ally against zinc oxide withdrawal.