This study was conducted to investigate the effect of dietary wormwood powder (Artemisia montana Pampan; WP) supplementation on growing performance and fecal noxious gas emission in weanling pigs. One hundred and twelve pigs were alloted into four treatments and offered for 4 weeks one of the diets supplemented with 0% (control), 0.5% (0.5), 1.0% (1.0) and 2.0% (2.0) WP. Each treatments has four replicate with 7 pigs per replicate. ADG, ADFI and F/G were improved by 1.0 and 2.0 WP supplementation during 0 d 14d feeding. Feed intake of 1.0 WP diet was higher (P 0.05) than any other diet during 15d 28d feeding. But there were no differences among the other treatments in the weight gain and feed conversion. During the whole feeding period, daily weight gain and feed intake of pigs fed 1.0 and 2.0 treatments were higher than those of pigs fed control and 0.5 diet. DM digestibility was significantly (P 0.05) higher in weanling pigs fed 0.5, 1.0 and 2.0 WP than that of the control. The protein digestibility was significantly improved in 1.0 WP treatment and the phosphorus digestibility was improved in 2.0 WP treatment. Excretion of nitrogen and phosphorus was significantly (P 0.05) decreased by 2.0 treatment than control. Emission of fecal ammonia after 48 hours storage in vinyl bag dramatically decreased by all the treatments except control. However, there was no statistical difference in fecal hydrogen sulfide emission among treatments. In conclusion, this study suggested that the dietary 1.0 2.0 supplementation of WP can improve productivity of pigs decrease fecal NH3 and H2S gas emission.

A total of 120 weanling pigs [(Landrace × Yorkshire) × Duroc], 21 days of age with an average initial body weight (BW) of 6.52 ± 0.22 (SE) kg were selected to investigate the effects of extruded rice product as a replacement for dried whey on growth performance, coefficient of total tract apparent digestibility (CATTD), blood profiles, faecal shedding of Lactobacillus and Escherichia coli (the microbial counts of digesta were expressed as log 10 colony forming units per gram), and faecal scores of weanling pigs. Pigs were randomly allocated to one of four dietary treatments, with six replicates per treatment and five pigs per pen. Pigs in the control group were fed a diet based on corn, soybean, and 20% dried whey. Experimental groups received the same diet as the control group, but dried whey was replaced by 3%, 6%, and 9% extruded rice. Throughout the experimental period (six weeks), no differences were observed in the average daily gain, average daily feed intake, and gain/feed ratio. Pigs fed 6% and 9% extruded rice had a lower (P < 0.05) CATTD than pigs fed the control diet on Day 14. The blood creatinine concentration of pigs fed 9% extruded rice was higher (P < 0.05) than that of pigs in the control group on Day 14. Pigs fed the diets containing 6% and 9% extruded rice had decreased (P < 0.05) faecal E. coli counts on Day 14 compared with pigs fed the control diet. The current results indicate that feeding extruded rice can decrease faecal E. coli counts without negative effects on growth performance in weanling pigs.