Plant extracts combat diseases

Not all diseases need prescription medicine.

This is the view of Vitfoss, which is why the company has launched a plant extract product called VitCox, which can be used to combat coccidiosis and cryptosporidia.

VitCox contains active substances from plants such as garlic, mint, liquorice and thyme.

Broad effect

One of the reasons for using garlic and liquorice is that they contain the active substances allicin and anethole, which reduced the prevalence of oocysts in manure in an experiment conducted in 2010. Oocysts propagate when an animal has coccidiosis.

In addition, the anti-inflammatory effect of garlic is also beneficial, states Per Theilgaard, Product Manager, Vitfoss.

Mint is a natural antioxidant, and lastly thymol (thyme extract) can be used as a general-purpose disinfectant.

Medicine is not everything

This plant extract is being launched to give dairy and veal farmers the option of boosting calves’ immune response system and combating disease without having to use medicine.

“The use of medicine in agriculture is under lots of scrutiny right now, which is why we want to focus on the fact that you don’t always need to use medicine to fight disease,” Per Theilgaard explains.

He adds that “alternative agents” and plant extracts constitute a rapidly growing area, in which the positive characteristics were documented as far back as twenty years ago.

Cultivating its own samples

Going forward, Vitfoss intends to work even more on parasites, which is why it has acquired its own laboratory equipment to enable the company to analyse the prevalence of parasites in manure.