Your cleaning skills may be superb, but sometimes even excellence doesn’t quite cut it. The reason is that the sow carries pathogenic bacteria in her gut. The sow stores bacteria like E. coli and Clostridium perfringens. If you have problems with diarrhoea in the farrowing section, you are probably quite familiar with these by now.
All pigs have a combination of potentially harmful and beneficial bacteria in the gut (and all sorts of bacteria in between). As a rule of thumb, a healthy gut flora consists of both good and bad bacteria (no rule without exceptions).
Your problems begin when pathogens take over and start to dominate the gut microflora. Changing the sow feed can help restrain those pathogens from dominating. Fermented feed balances the gut microflora by promoting beneficial bacteria and reducing pathogens.
A healthy gut is not a quick-fix. It takes time. On the positive side, an improvement in gut health increases your profit.
Source: European Protein