Influence of humic acids as a feed supplement on the health status of suckling piglets

Over the last decades, antimicrobial additives in livestock feed are used as growth promoters for increased weight gain and better feed conversion. Additionally, they decrease the risk for disease occurrence in the livestock herds. Therefore, antimicrobial feed additives have an economic role in livestock production for optimization of nutritional strategies to generate profit. The most used antimicrobial feed additives are antibiotics, but recently their uncontrolled use in livestock production lead to bacterial resistance, including pathogens that cause diseases in humans and animals. For that reason, nowadays antibiotics are more perceived as a risk than are growth promoters in livestock production. One of the alternatives for the replacement of antibiotic use as feed supplements (antibiotic-free range) is humic acids, which are widely used in broiler production, and recently their use is expanded in pig production. Humic acids are defined as a group of organic acids naturally contained in the humus. They originated from the decomposition of organic substances, especially plants in the soils. The use of dietary natural humic acids as feed supplements in swine production is increasing the expectations for the better health status of herds as a result of immunological system stimulation and their antibacterial and antiviral effects. Until now, there are huge gaps in knowledge of the biological effect of humic acids in animals. The main aim of the performed survey was to evaluate the effect of natural humic acids used as feed additives on health records in piglets

Short communication: In vitro antimicrobial properties of basil and thyme essential oils against Salmonella Spp.

Food diseases are caused by consuming foods that have been contaminated by an infectious agent or a toxin produced by it. According to the WHO, 30% of people in industrialized countries suffer from foodborne diseases. Salmonella enteritidis even at 95.9% was the main etiological factor for salmonellosis in humans (De Knegt et al., 2015) and have established a trend of increasing the level of contamination of food products with Salmonella spp. in the Republic of North Macedonia. In order to protect food from contamination with pathogens and other harmful microorganisms, many scientists have examined the antifungal, antibacterial and antioxidative properties of essential oils (EOs) and their application in food technology. They are considered a safe and environmentally friendly alternative to the control of bacteria present in the food and food industry, but also to the control of other pathogenic microorganisms, especially those that are drug resistant (Yap et al., 2014). The aim of the study was to determine the antimicrobial effect of different concentrations of basil and thyme EOs on the growth of Salmonella enteritidis in laboratory conditions, inoculated in dough for making pasta with eggs and inoculums with flour and chicken egg