Effect of Mentha Extract on the Growth Performance of Weaned Piglets
Abstract：To investigate the effect of different levels of mentha extract added to the diet on the growth performance of weaned piglets and to determine its feasibility in the feeding of weaned piglets, a trial was conducted using 60 'Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire' three-way crossbred weaned piglets. The piglets were randomly divided into 4 groups with 3 replicates each, and each replicate had 5 piglets. They were fed diets with 0% (control group), 0.1%, 0.2%, and 0.4% mentha extract added to the basic diet for weaned piglets. The pre-trial period was 1 week, and the main trial period was 4 weeks. The results showed that compared with the control group, the final body weight and average daily gain of piglets in the 0.2% mentha extract group were significantly increased (P < 0.05), by 9.56% and 15.43%, respectively; the feed-to-gain ratio was significantly reduced by 12.37% (P < 0.05). The diarrhea rate of weaned piglets in the 0.2% and 0.4% mentha extract groups was significantly reduced by 61.33% and 61.60% (P < 0.05), respectively. The study found that adding an appropriate amount of mentha extract to the diet can effectively improve the growth performance of weaned piglets and significantly reduce the diarrhea rate. Considering the feeding cost of piglets comprehensively, adding 0.2% mentha extract is more appropriate.
Keywords：Mentha extractPigletsGrowth performance
Publication Date：2025-02-27
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：3( 41-43 )