Herbal Extracts Boost Animal Health

Written By Malcolm Green from Dr Squiggles

Modern livestock farming is going through a revolution. The days of using antibiotics to promote growth in poultry pigs and even rabbits is rapidly being consigned to history. But farmers still need ways to maximise their production and now they are turning to more natural, herbal technologies.

For pet and exhibition small animal keepers this is good news as the same ingredients can now be made available for you. So what can these herbal extracts do for your stock?
There are three major effects we can achieve with herbs:

1. Anti-microbial effects. Some plant extracts actively attack many disease causing bugs. Of particular importance to rabbit breeders is their ability to help the animal control parasites like coccidia. As yet we do not have enough data to be confident about replacing coccidiostat drugs though our sister company has been getting excellent results in the canary and finch fancies where this disease is a major problem.

2. Other herbs modify the environment in the gut of the animal. They make the gut a more attractive place for beneficial bacteria. The result is a digestive system less well suited for bad bacteria. We call this a prebiotic effect. The result is much less risk of digestive infections. Prebiotics and traditional probiotics can be used together with excellent results.

3. Perhaps the most interesting effect we can achieve with herbs is to stimulate the immune system. This is very important because the immune system is capable of fighting viral infections. Because viruses use the host's own cells to multiply themselves drugs against viruses are virtually non existent.

What we see in the collections of herbal extract users is faster growing youngsters and better disease resistance in both young and adult animals.

Of course no one herb can achieve all these effects so a blend of carefully selected plant extracts. We use a combination of a German blend (from a firm who makes products for commercial rabbit breeders) and we add other ingredients we source from the UK and America.

These herbal extracts are not water-soluble so they have to be added to the animal's feed. Simply add them to slightly moist green food carrots etc. or sprinkle them onto a pellet or slightly moistened hay. For maximum economy we have incorporated these herbs into a new, highly concentrated supplement (just one level teaspoon a day for a stud of eighty Netherland Dwarf sized rabbits!) called Essentials Plus. This contains a comprehensive vitamin blend, our unique Rapisorb minerals and our Maxima and amino acid technologies for better fur quality and faster moulting.