In 2004, the EU approved the use of macleaya cordata powder in animal feed, and included it in the EU Feed Additives Act. In 2011, China approved the list of macleaya cordata powder as a national second-class new veterinary drug; in 2012, macleaya cordata powder became one of the addition-approved additives in Chinese veterinary drug feed during its production; after the all-around ban on antibiotics in feed in 2019, macleaya cordata powder since became a safe and efficient Chinese veterinary drug product that has been widely recognized and used by people. Additionally, it can be added to feed for a long term and has no withdrawal period, and has anti-inflammatory and growth-promoting effects.

Introduction to macleaya cordata

Macleaya cordata belongs to the poppy family, and is a perennial erect herbaceous plant with milky yellow juice at the base. Its stem is smooth and green, up to 4 meters high, with much white powder, the leaves are broadly ovate or nearly round, and the apex is acute, acuminated, obtuse or round. The lobes are semicircular, square, orchid-shaped ,or other, and the edge is wavy and notched shape, green on the surface, white powder on the back, with network of veins, often show light red; Large panicles many-flowered, terminally and axillary; bracts narrowly lanceolated. Flower buds rod-shaped, nearly white, sepals obovate-oblong, boat-shaped, yellow-white; filaments filamentous, anthers strip-shaped, as long as filaments; ovary obovate to narrowly obovate, capsule narrowly obovate or oblanceolate, absently haired. Seeds ovoid, with narrow caruncle. Flowering and fruiting from June to November.

It’s widely spread in most provinces and regions south of the Yangtze River, and north of the Nanling Mountains of China, reaching Guangdong in the south, Guizhou in the west, and southern Gansu in the northwest, and it is also spread to Japan. It is borns in hills or low mountain forests, bushes ,or grasses at an altitude of 150-830 meters.

The whole plant is highly poisonous and cannot taken orally. It is used to treat bruises, arthritis, sweat spots, malignant sores, bee stings, anesthesia, analgesia, and swelling. It can be a pesticide to prevent rice stink bugs, rice bract bugs, and snails.

Introduction to macleaya cordata extract

The extract of macleaya cordata can help with anti-oxidation, anti-inflammation ,and immune enhancement, which is beneficial to safeguard the institutional health of animals and boost their growth. It can replace AGPs as a growth booster in feed.

• Feed replacement antibody: the main components are sanguinarine and chelerythrine, which have strong anti-inflammatory activity. In animals, by inhibiting severe outbreaks, the replacement antibody can optimize the intestinal environment, improve intestinal health, and promote animal growth, that is, the perfect feed antibiotic replacement mechanism of "anti-inflammation, intestinal regulation, and growth promotion"

•Preventing and treating diarrhea: Intestinal inflammation and changes in tissue cell permeability. It can more broadly and effectively prevent and treat animal diarrhea by managing intestinal inflammation

•Efficient growth promotion: reducing ineffective consumption of nutrients, promoting body anabolism; maintaining intestinal integrity, optimizing intestinal microbial flora, improving nutrient utilization efficiency, and promoting nutrient deposition in muscle tissue.

•Broiler chickens: increase benefit index, improve carcass quality, reduce manure moisture content, improve litter quality

• Laying hens: reduce the feed-to-egg ratio, extend the peak egg production period, improve egg quality, increase eggshell thickness, and reduce egg breaking rate

• Aquatic animals: maintain intestinal health, reduce mortality, improve immunity, resist stress, protect liver and gallbladder, improve body shape and color, and reduce bait coefficient

• Lactating sows: Improve constipation, reduce sow triad disease, increase feed intake, reduce backfat loss of sows, increase milk secretion, improve quality, and increase weaned litter weight of piglets

• Piglets: anti-diarrhea, anti-stress, increase feed intake, reduce feed-to-meat ratio

• Fattening pigs: increase feed intake, reduce feed-to-meat ratio, improve meat quality, reduce odor, and improve the environment

Applications of macleaya cordata extract

1、Poultry

Its functional ingredients in poultry production can increase feed intake and weight gain of broilers, reduce feed-to-meat ratio; improve intestinal health, increase ration digestibility, reduce overfeeding; enhance body resistance, prevent disease infection; improve egg Egg production rate of poultry, reduce dead panning and other effects. The broiler feeding experiment showed that adding 20 mg/kg of macleaya cordata extract (the main components are sanguinarine and chelerythrine) to the diet can significantly increase the weight gain of broiler chickens, reduce the feed-to-meat ratio, and has the equivalent growth-promoting effect of avermectin ( 10 mg/kg);

The relative weight of the jejunum and ileum of broilers in the macleaya cordata extract group was reduced, the relative length was increased, and the number of intestinal Lactobacillus was soared. In the heat stress environment, the functional ingredients of macleaya cordata (sanguinarine, chelerythrine, protopine, allocryptine) can improve the growth and the intestinal health of broilers. Khadem et al. reported that macleaya cordata extract had anti-inflammatory activity and growth-promoting effect similar to oxytetracycline on broiler chickens. The functional ingredients of macleaya cordata can also prevent the infection of Salmonella and Clostridium perfringens in broilers. Alaeldein M. Abudabos et al. reported that the benzophenanthridine alkaloids from macleaya cordata can reduce the intestinal damage of Salmonella typhimurium-challenged broilers , and promotes the restoration of growth performance and gut health.

G. D. Xue et al reported that alkaloids extracted from macleaya cordata can promote the recovery of growth and meat production of broiler chickens challenged with Clostridium perfringens, and reduce the intestinal lesion scores of duodenum, jejunum and ileum of challenged broilers . Adding sanguinarine to the low-protein diet of laying hens can improve their cellular immunity and humoral immunity, improving their bodys' antioxidant level, inhibiting the proliferation of intestinal Escherichia coli and Salmonella, and improving intestinal health.

2、Pigs

The application of macleaya cordata functional ingredients in pig production is mainly in the stages of weaned piglets, growing pigs, late pregnancy, and lactating sows. It has the effects of promoting growth, anti-stress, and improving intestinal health. Early weaning is one of the biggest challenges in modern intensive pig production. Changes in diet, stress, and environment after weaning often cause intestinal dysfunction and even diarrhea in piglets. Adding macleaya cordata extract (the main components are sanguinarine and chelerythrine) to the diet of weaned piglets can reduce the reaction of inflammation in the body, significantly improve the weight gain and feed conversion efficiency of piglets, and increase the phosphorus and amino acid digestibility.

The research of Chen J et al. on early weaned piglets showed that adding macleaya cordata extract to the basal diet not only improved the growth, but also developed the intestinal health, the height of the small intestinal villi, and the number of lactic acid bacteria in the cecum. The number of Salmonella and Escherichia coli decreased, the content of short-chain fatty acids in cecal chyme rocketed, and the content of ammonia plunged. Adding macleaya cordata extract to the diet of growing pigs can boost the growth performance, and has a growth-promoting effect similar to that of colistin sulfate. At the same time, it can also develop the blood amino acid concentration, reduce the diarrhea score of growing pigs, and strengthen the barrier function of intestinal tract .

Studies have shown that sanguinarine and chelerythrine extracted from macleaya cordata can also reduce the stress level of pigs during transportation and reduce Salmonella contamination of pig carcasses. Adding macleaya cordata extract to the diet of sows in the late pregnancy and lactation period can increase the number of live births, piglet birth weight, weaning weight, survival rate during lactation and feed intake during lactation, and reduce weight loss and backfat loss of sows during lactation, shorten the weaning estrus interval of sows.

3、Aquatic animals

The functional ingredients of macleaya cordata have effects on killing various parasites that threaten the production of aquatic animals such as schistosomes, ringworms, and small melon worms, and benefiting aquatic animals such as sea bass, red tilapia, koi, carp, and Penaeus vannamei with their growth, immunity, health and others. Supplementing 50 mg/kg Sangrovit (the main components are sanguinarine and chelerythrine) in the diet of sea bass can significantly improve its weight gain and specific growth rate. Experimental studies on red tilapia showed that, compared with the control group, red tilapia supplemented with sanguinarine and chelerythrine had improved feed intake, weight gain and specific growth rate, and their carcass composition, liver function and health status did not differ too much.

Taking koi as the test object, Zhang R et al. studied the effects of adding sanguinarine in the diet on the immune function, digestive enzyme activity and intestinal microflora of koi. The results showed that the addition of sanguinarine in the diet significantly reduced blood The levels of tumor necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) and malondialdehyde significantly increased the levels of blood lysozyme, glutathione peroxidase, and superoxide dismutase; the levels of TNF-α and IL-1β genes in intestinal tissue The expression was significantly reduced; the intestinal microbial diversity was significantly increased; the survival rate of koi carp was significantly increased after Aeromonas hydrophila challenge. Tests on carp show that sanguinarine and chelerythrine can significantly improve the growth performance of carp, significantly reduce the number of intestinal E. coli, and the resistance of Aeromonas hydrophila after challenge is significantly enhanced. macleaya cordata extract can also improve the health of Penaeus vannamei and significantly reduce the mortality rate.

4、Ruminants

Udder inflammation not only reduces the milk production performance of cows, but also dampens the quality of dairy products. The functional ingredients of macleaya cordata have good anti-inflammatory activity, which can improve mastitis in cows and reduce the somatic cell count in milk. The research of Estrada-Angulo A et al. on dairy goats showed that the functional ingredients of macleaya cordata can improve the anti-stress ability of them and promote feed intake. The functional ingredients of macleaya cordata can improve the efficiency of rumen microorganisms in ruminants, reduce the rumen degradation of nitrogen in the diet, and enhance the digestion of nitrogen in the hind stomach to improve the efficiency of nitrogen utilization. Experiments on crossbred bulls have shown that dietary supplementation with macleaya cordata functional ingredients can improve feed efficiency and carcass production compared to controls.

The extract specification of macleaya cordata

【Product Name】 Macleaya Cordata Extract

【Chemical Composition】 The main active ingredients in macleaya cordata extract are: Sanguinarine, chelerythrine, protopine, α-Allocryptopine and β - Allocrytopine.