During the last decades, antibiotic growth promoters have been widely used in the livestock industry due to their excellent health and growth promotion properties. However, owing to the decrease therapeutic effectiveness of antibiotics for treatment of bacterial infection in humans, the use of antibiotics as feed additives for livestock was completely banned in the European Union in 2006. Therefore, considerable efforts have been devoted towards developing alternatives to stabilize the health and growth performance in livestock. Bamboo vinegar (BV), which has been traditionally employed for centuries in Eastern medicine, is a naturally derived liquid obtained from the condensation occurring during the production of bamboo charcoal. It is composed principally of more than 200 chemical components, with acetic acid (about 60%) being the main one (Mu et al., 2004). Akakabe et al. (2006) confirmed that BV, with a pH of 2.5–2.8, can function as insecticide, bactericide and deodorant for treating malodor from pets. Baimark and Niamsa (2009) also proposed that BV had a higher antifungal efficiency than acetic acid and formic acid in vitro, and suggested that the phenolic compound found in BV mightevidence some antifungal effects as well. However, to the best of our knowledge, the applications of BV in animals
have not been vigorously investigated, and only Kook et al. (2002a, b) suggested that supplementation with BV and BV
liquids could improve the growth performance of ducks and pigs, respectively. Collectively, the objective of this experiment was to evaluate the effects of BV on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, blood characteristics, fecal microbial shedding, fecal noxious gas contents, and meat quality in finishing pigs.