Table 5.

The effects of diets with or without alternative additive (A) and colistin (C) on cecum microbial composition of piglets euthanized at 35 d of age

	Diet1					P-value
Item	CON	COL	AA	AACOL	SEM	A	C	A × C
OTU
Simple means, %
Bifidobacterium	0.59	0.37	1.18	1.25	0.21	—	—	—
Lactobacillus	19.55	20.73	17.99	24.40	4.20	—	—	—
Clostridium 1	2.09	0.40	2.17	0.90	0.41	—	—	—
Clostridium 2	0.23	1.13	0.19	0.08	0.23	—	—	—
Campylobacter	12.74	7.67	0.09	0.94	1.81	—	—	—
Escherichia–Shigella	4.16	2.84	0.55	2.36	0.66	—	—	—
Transformed means
Bifidobacterium	0.06	0.06	0.08	0.10	0.01	0.185	0.634	0.587
Lactobacillus	0.40	0.42	0.41	0.45	0.06	0.845	0.780	0.905
Clostridium 1	0.12	0.06	0.11	0.09	0.02	0.717	0.142	0.497
Clostridium 2	0.04	0.06	0.03	0.02	0.01	0.285	0.754	0.456
Campylobacter	0.28	0.18	0.03	0.07	0.04	0.029	0.692	0.360
Escherichia–Shigella	0.18	0.13	0.06	0.10	0.03	0.090	0.921	0.349

1CON, control diet; COL, diet containing 40 ppm colistin; AA, diet with 0.3% inclusion of alternative additive composed of benzoic acid and essential oils of eugenol, thymol and piperine; AACOL, diet with 0.3% AA and 40 ppm colistin.

^a,bMeans within a row with different superscripts differ (P < 0.05).