Control of Salmonella transmission has been a challenge for the pork production companies. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of oral administration of probiotics on the occurrence of infection and fecal excretion of Salmonella in growers. The treatments consisted of basal diet without additives (control) or added of probiotic (10(7)cfu g-1 of viable cells of the genera Bifidobacterium, Enterococcus, Lactobacillus and Saccharomyces). Six 50 days-old pigs were allocated into each treatment, with two replicates per treatment. All animals were inoculated with Salmonella Typhimurium (10(6)cfu mL-1) after 14 days of housing. Afterwards, blood and feces samples were taken weekly and on day 35 post-inoculation the animals were euthanized and necropsied. The animals in both treatment groups were infected by Salmonella and seroconverted. There was no difference (P>0.05) between groups in mean counts of Salmonella, Enterococcus, Lactobacillus and coliforms in the feces samples, but the probiotic administration resulted in a lower frequency of isolation of Salmonella from liver (P=0.04), mesenteric lymph nodes (P=0.04), lung (P=0.03) and spleen (P=0.01). It was concluded that the probiotic microorganisms tested in this study were not able to protect against the infection or to decrease the fecal excretion of Salmonella in growing pigs, but were able to decrease the number of carriers in the mesenteric lymph nodes.
biological control; growers; seroconvertion; mesenteric lymph nodes; carriers
