Effect of Chinese herb additives on antioxidant status of weaned piglets

Sucking piglets in 16 litters which had similar fetals and farrowing dates were randomly divided into four groups,three treatments were added with traditional Chinese herb feed additives Ⅰ(4 kg·t~(-1)),traditional Chinese herb feed additives Ⅱ(4 kg·t~(-1)) and Chlortetracycline(70 g·t~(-1)) and bacitracinzinc(30 g·t~(-1)) in the same basic dietary,respectively.The blood samples were taken from the vena cava 3 days before weaning and 1,4,7,14,28 days post weaning and measured to study the effect of Chinese herb feed additives on antioxidant status of weaned piglets.The results were as follows: A day after weaning,the activity of serum superoxide dismutase(SOD),glutathione peroxidase(GSH-Px),catalase(CAT),total antioxidative capacity(T-AOC) in piglets decreased,and the content of serum malonaldehyde(MDA) increased.Compared with antibiotics group and control group,the activity of serum SOD,GSH-Px,CAT and T-AOC in two Chinese herb groups were higher and the contents of serum MDA were lower during experimental period.It can be concluded that Chinese herb feed additives could improve antioxidant status of weaned piglets.