Effect of Dietary Supplementation of Finishers with Herbal Probiotics, Ascorbic Acid and Allicin on the Cost and Quality Characteristics of Pork

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript was totally hard to follow due to insufficient description about Materials and Methods and English quality (e.g., P1L24-P1L26).

 

For example, the author must describe information about feed intake, because pigs seems to be fed ad libitum. Therefore, the results might be (strongly) affect the difference in feed intake and efficiency.

Moreover, the author must describe in more detail about rearing situation and management. How about room temperature, humidity, and light condition?

On the other hand, I could not under stand how did the author prepare Table 3.

Author Response

This manuscript was totally hard to follow due to insufficient description about Materials and Methods and English quality (e.g., P1L24-P1L26).

Answer: as suggested by the reviewer, duplicate sentences have been removed from the Summary part (P1L24-P1L26). To ensure high-quality publications, it was checked by a native speaking person.

 For example, the author must describe information about feed intake, because pigs seems to be fed ad libitum. Therefore, the results might be (strongly) affect the difference in feed intake and efficiency.

Answer: As I wrote in the publication methodology, all fattening pigs in the study were fed with the same mixture, ad libitum feeding system. In point 3.1. I added information from the farm regarding the fattening efficiency for both groups. Apart from these average results of pig fattening efficiency, other information from the farm could not be obtained because it was not analyzed.

Moreover, the author must describe in more detail about rearing situation and management. How about room temperature, humidity, and light condition?

Answer: OK, I have completed the information in the research methodology - temperature, humidity, and light condition in two identical piggeries.

On the other hand, I could not under stand how did the author prepare Table 3.

Answer: in accordance with the valuable comments of the reviewer, I added details of the cost of the fall (mortality) of fattening pigs to my calculation - point 3.1.

Corrections in the publication in accordance with the comments in the review are written in red. I attach a certificate of linguistic proofreading by a native.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear author,

The manuscript “Effect of dietary supplementation of finishing diet with herbal probiotics, ascorbic acid and allicin on pig economic results and 3 quality characteristics of pork” (agriculture-1815555) is devoted to the following: 1) “to determine the impact of dietary feed supplementation with Fermented Herb Extract enriched with probiotics, ascorbic acid and allicin on pig mortalities and pork physicochemical characteristics”; 2) to evaluate “cholesterol and macro and microelements content in LL muscle”, etc. This topic is in frame of the journal scope, the subject matter is treated in depth. The present manuscript is important and actual. It is positive that the author analyzed the literature works in main aspects and cited about 25 references (from 54 total) in the part 1. “Introduction”.

There are some comments:

1. The author mentioned that “experiment was carried out on 3614 hybrid pigs (equal share of gilts and barrows), of the offspring of PIC410 boars and DanBred sows (Landrace-Yorkshire), divided into two groups”. It is not clear, why the author divided all these animals into 2 groups only, please explain it completely. To my opinion, it is reasonable to divided the so-called experimental group (as well as the control one) additionally by gilts and barrows), i.e. 4 groups total. For example, using this approach, the novel experimental groups will consist of the groups of gilts and of barrows, i.e. 2 groups depending on the gender. In this case, one can expect to obtain more differences between the studied parameters.  

2. There are a lot of small and unreliable differences between many studied parameters, that makes no sense to discuss in this manuscript. For example, the author mentioned that “the treatment group had a lower mortality (1.61%) compared to the control group of pigs…”.  To my opinion, it makes no sense to discuss in this manuscript the differences below 5% between the studied parameters in the experimental and the control groups.

3. It is not clear, why the author used in the table 4 the data concerning the 120 animals only: 1) experimental group (n = 60) and 2) control group (n = 60) or in the tables 5-7 the data concerning the 60 animals only: 1) experimental group (n = 30) and 2) control group (n = 30), whereas “the experiment was carried out on 3614 hybrid pigs…” ?. See line 227 “Table 4. Carcass quality and basic chemical composition of the LL muscle” or line 245 “Table 5. Physico-chemical traits of the LL and the SM muscle”, etc. In all these tables it can be expected that the differences between many studied parameters will be small and unreliable (it is really observed in many case). 

In conclusion, I do not doubt the technical quality of the work, but feel that the author must fulfill the major revision of this manuscript. There are a lot of statistically insignificant differences in the reported parameters.

 

A moderate editing of English language and style required.  

Author Response

1. The author mentioned that “experiment was carried out on 3614 hybrid pigs (equal share of gilts and barrows), of the offspring of PIC410 boars and DanBred sows (Landrace-Yorkshire), divided into two groups”. It is not clear, why the author divided all these animals into 2 groups only, please explain it completely. To my opinion, it is reasonable to divided the so-called experimental group (as well as the control one) additionally by gilts and barrows), i.e. 4 groups total. For example, using this approach, the novel experimental groups will consist of the groups of gilts and of barrows, i.e. 2 groups depending on the gender. In this case, one can expect to obtain more differences between the studied parameters. Answer: For the purpose of determining the mortality of fattening pigs and economic calculation, the fattening pigs were divided into two groups of approximately 1800 pigs each. For detailed carcass quality tests, 60 fatteners with similar body weight and equal share of gilts and pigs were selected from each group. On the slaughter line, 30 carcasses of similar weight and equal sex ratio were selected for detailed tests of meat quality and functional properties. As suggested by the reviewer, I conducted a two-factor analysis of variance (group of fatteners x sex) for the analyzed characteristics of carcass and meat quality, taking into account the interaction between tchem (see table 4-8). According to the obtained statistical significance, the discussion of the results and conclusions to them were improved
2. There are a lot of small and unreliable differences between many studied parameters, that makes no sense to discuss in this manuscript. For example, the author mentioned that “the treatment group had a lower mortality (1.61%) compared to the control group of pigs…”. To my opinion, it makes no sense to discuss in this manuscript the differences below 5% between the studied parameters in the experimental and the control groups.                                                                                                  Answer: in my paper I do not discuss the mortality rate - whether it is high or low, etc. The mortality rate was only needed for the economic calculation for the two pig production systems.
3. It is not clear, why the author used in the table 4 the data concerning the 120 animals only: 1) experimental group (n = 60) and 2) control group (n = 60) or in the tables 5-7 the data concerning the 60 animals only: 1) experimental group (n = 30) and 2) control group (n = 30), whereas “the experiment was carried out on 3614 hybrid pigs…” ?. See line 227 “Table 4. Carcass quality and basic chemical composition of the LL muscle” or line 245 “Table 5. Physico-chemical traits of the LL and the SM muscle”, etc. In all these tables it can be expected that the differences between many studied parameters will be small and unreliable (it is really observed in many case).                                                                                           Answer: That's right. Details of the selection of porkers for testing are given in section 1 of the review responses. The capabilities of the team of people and the laboratory did not allow for taking more samples for research in such a short time.

In conclusion, I do not doubt the technical quality of the work, but feel that the author must fulfill the major revision of this manuscript. There are a lot of statistically insignificant differences in the reported parameters.  A moderate editing of English language and style required.  Answer: based on the correction proposed by the reviewer - taking into account the gender of fattening pigs in the analysis, necessary corrections to the text of the publication were made.

Corrections in the publication in accordance with the comments in the review are written in blue. I attach a certificate of linguistic proofreading by a native.

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The manuscript has been improved.

Reviewer 2 Report

Dear authors,

The authors corrected the manuscript "Effect of dietary supplementation of finishing diet with herbal-probiotics, ascorbic acid and allicin on pig economic results and quality characteristics of pork" (agriculture-1815555) according to the comments of the Reviewer. The authors made the editing of English language and style.

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This study explores the effects of a cornucopia of plant extracts, probiotics, and acidifiers on finishing pig mortality and carcass characteristics.

Unfortunately, the literary quality of this manuscript is not sufficient to be published as written. Please carefully proofread and address grammar throughout the manuscript: verb tense, subject-verb agreement, and sentence structure are an issue throughout. Some examples:

L14: “The demand of safe and qualitative meat on the market has considerably increased nowadays” should read “the demand for safe and high-quality meat….”

L15: “…which positively effect on animal health…” should be “which positively affect animal health…”

L17: “Our studies analyzed the effect of dietary supplementation of finishing diet with herbal- probiotics preparation, ascorbic acid and allicin on mortality rates of pigs, and longissimus lumborum (LL) and semimembranosus (SM) muscle quality, including cholesterol and macro and microelements content.”

• This is a run-on sentence
• “…effect of finishing diet supplementation with a herbal-probiotics…”
• Content – were concentrations measured? If so, this is a more accurate term

L22: “The experimental group of pigs received Fermented Herbs Extract from Multikraft company enriched with probiotics (S. cerevisiae, L. casei, L. plantarum) as well as ascorbic acid (E300) and allicin during the fattening (95 days), while the control group was grown on a typical finishing diets containing a commonly used commercial doses of antibiotics” should be “The experimental group of pigs received Fermented Herbs Extract (Multikraft, LOCATION) enriched with probiotics (S. cerevisiae, L. casei, L. plantarum) as well as ascorbic acid (E300) and allicin during the finishing period (95 days), while the control group was fed a typical finishing diet containing levels of antibiotics consistent with those used in commercial pig production”

L24: “probiotic-supplements”; why is there a hyphen here?

L24: “lowering finishing pig mortality and increasing pork quality”

L35: remove “has”

L38: “Their commercial use in pig production was justified by their ability to reduce pathogenic bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, reducing the occurrence and the severity of diarrhea and animal mortalities, and by improving feed utilization and weight gain.”

            Additionally, this is a bit of a run-on sentence as well

L44: “published data from recent years indicates…”

L45: “the high health status of the production herds and, at the same time to reduce mortalities, is still high” – this is very awkward phrasing. Please restate.

L46: Therefore, alternatives to antibiotics, natural additives, abundant in bioactive components that can positively effect animal health status and welfare, with simultaneous positive effects on production efficiencies and desirable carcass and meat quality characteristics, are being sought.” Again, very awkward phrasing, and this sentence contains far too many commas to be followable. Please rephrase.

 

I could continue, but I do not feel it is necessary for me to provide a line-by-line grammatical analysis of this manuscript. Scientific related concerns are below. One of my main concerns regards the housing of these pigs. It sounds as though treatment groups were housed in separate barns, wherein the control barn broke with Salmonella (a fecal-oral transmitted pathogen). Thus, if the pathogen burden going into the experiment were not equivalent, one can not tease any (possible) beneficial effects of the experimental treatment from the deleterious effects of a Salmonella break, and since treatment groups were not equally distributed, the authors cannot prove that this pathogen burden was equal prior to initiating experimental treatments. Thus, this study appears to be confounded by Salmonella status. I also have some concerns with how the data was (or was not analyzed). Finally, the authors use pretty strong language regarding the efficacy of this supplement, particularly regarding health, for which their claims do not entirely support. Overconclusion needs to be contained throughout the text (positive impact, beneficial effect, etc.). More specific concerns are below.

Throughout: you often refer to the additive as a pro-health supplement. You cannot make this claim, as you didn’t measure any health metrics or perform any disease challenge. rephrase.

Throughout: several times you refer to the additive as a “dietary feed supplement”, which makes it sounds as though the product were added to the feed. However, based on your methods this was a water additive. Please make sure your language is clear.

L14: This claim makes it sound like antibiotics and chemotherapeutics reduce the safety of meat, which they do not. Please rephrase.

L15: “The producers are eager to use natural and safe non-chemical forage supplements….” this sentence is a bit speculative and the way it reads, makes it sound like the authors are claiming their product does all of these things (increase health, increase productivity, improve meat quality, etc), which is not necessarily the case based on the data. Please rephrase.

L22, 39, throughout: “fattening” is a bit of a slang term. Please rephrase to something more scientific, like finishing phase

L27: what is “meatiness”?? Again, very slang term. Do you mean lean %? Please rephrase throughout.

L95: “…120 hybrid pigs” is this your total number of pigs used for the experiment? If so, does not match with the data in the mortality table, or the numbers used to allocate pigs to pens. Please reconcile this issue.

L106 and throughout: please be consistent with how you refer to your control group. You often switch between calling them the experimental group, the groups supplemented with Multikraft…, groups supplemented with pro-health supplements, etc. Please stick with calling them the experimental group, not switching back and forth, particularly in the results.

L100: were treatment groups allocated evenly across barns? Or were treatment groups housed in separate barns? I do not feel this study is valid if treatment groups were housed in separate barns.

L204: was sex included in your model as a random effect? What about barn (if not confounded with treatment)?

L209: mortality should not be analyzed with a simple 1-way ANOVA, as it is not a continuous variable. Further, what are the statistics (P-values) associated with your mortality results? What this not statistically analyzed? If not, you should not make so many mortality claims in your results and discussion.

L210: “clearly indicated” is pretty strong language. Please tone this down.

L212: did the control pigs receive antibiotics because of the Salmonella? This is how it sounds from your wording. However, from the methods, it seems as though antibiotic inclusion was a choice made prior to the experiment. Please restate this to better reflect the truth.

L215: If you did not analyze or do cost analysis, you should not include this information regarding cost in the results.

L222: Again, carcass meatiness? I am fairly certain you mean percent lean or lean percent.

Tables: please include P-values in your tables.

Discussion: in general, this is very hard to follow. While although some of this is due to the grammatical errors found throughout, the authors do not do a very good job of integrating their findings with previous researchers’ findings and they often bounce back and forth between topics and supplement types, which makes it hard to read. This should be rewritten.

L264-267: what results are similar? Please include

L281: they postulated or actually observed greater dry matter of IMF? Big difference in terms of how to interpret this finding.

L337: hypostatize???

L390: again, you should not make production cost claims

Author Response

L14: “The demand of safe and qualitative meat on the market has considerably increased nowadays” should read “the demand for safe and high-quality meat….” OK, corrected.

L15: “…which positively effect on animal health…” should be “which positively affect animal health…” OK, corrected.

L17: “Our studies analyzed the effect of dietary supplementation of finishing diet with herbal- probiotics preparation, ascorbic acid and allicin on mortality rates of pigs, and longissimus lumborum (LL) and semimembranosus (SM) muscle quality, including cholesterol and macro and microelements content.”

• This is a run-on sentence
• “…effect of finishing diet supplementation with a herbal-probiotics…” OK, corrected.
• Content – were concentrations measured? If so, this is a more accurate term. Specified "content".

L22: “The experimental group of pigs received Fermented Herbs Extract from Multikraft company enriched with probiotics (S. cerevisiae, L. casei, L. plantarum) as well as ascorbic acid (E300) and allicin during the fattening (95 days), while the control group was grown on a typical finishing diets containing a commonly used commercial doses of antibiotics” should be “The experimental group of pigs received Fermented Herbs Extract (Multikraft, LOCATION) enriched with probiotics (S. cerevisiae, L. casei, L. plantarum) as well as ascorbic acid (E300) and allicin during the finishing period (95 days), while the control group was fed a typical finishing diet containing levels of antibiotics consistent with those used in commercial pig production” OK, corrected.

L24: “probiotic-supplements”; why is there a hyphen here? OK, corrected.

L24: “lowering finishing pig mortality and increasing pork quality” OK, corrected.

L35: remove “has” OK, corrected.

L38: “Their commercial use in pig production was justified by their ability to reduce pathogenic bacteria in the gastrointestinal tract, reducing the occurrence and the severity of diarrhea and animal mortalities, and by improving feed utilization and weight gain.” OK, corrected.

            Additionally, this is a bit of a run-on sentence as well

L44: “published data from recent years indicates…” OK, corrected.

L45: “the high health status of the production herds and, at the same time to reduce mortalities, is still high” – this is very awkward phrasing. Please restate. OK, corrected.

L46: Therefore, alternatives to antibiotics, natural additives, abundant in bioactive components that can positively effect animal health status and welfare, with simultaneous positive effects on production efficiencies and desirable carcass and meat quality characteristics, are being sought.” Again, very awkward phrasing, and this sentence contains far too many commas to be followable. Please rephrase. OK, corrected.

Throughout: you often refer to the additive as a pro-health supplement. You cannot make this claim, as you didn’t measure any health metrics or perform any disease challenge. rephrase. We used the term pro-health because it allowed us to use one term in the test to replace listing so many supplements used in the research. However, we agree with the suggestion to replace this term with something else. We removed most of the phrases "pro-health".

Throughout: several times you refer to the additive as a “dietary feed supplement”, which makes it sounds as though the product were added to the feed. However, based on your methods this was a water additive. Please make sure your language is clear. We believe that the term "supplement" can be used for both water and feed additives. We checked the clear of the language.

L14: This claim makes it sound like antibiotics and chemotherapeutics reduce the safety of meat, which they do not. Please rephrase. OK, corrected.

L15: “The producers are eager to use natural and safe non-chemical forage supplements….” this sentence is a bit speculative and the way it reads, makes it sound like the authors are claiming their product does all of these things (increase health, increase productivity, improve meat quality, etc), which is not necessarily the case based on the data. Please rephrase. OK, corrected.

L22, 39, throughout: “fattening” is a bit of a slang term. Please rephrase to something more scientific, like finishing phase. OK, corrected in entire publication.

L27: what is “meatiness”?? Again, very slang term. Do you mean lean %? Please rephrase throughout. Yes, carcass lean procentage. Text has been corrected throughout the publication.

L95: “…120 hybrid pigs” is this your total number of pigs used for the experiment? If so, does not match with the data in the mortality table, or the numbers used to allocate pigs to pens. Please reconcile this issue. The research was carried out on 3614 finishing pigs, 60 of which were selected for strict qualitative research from each group. The text was corrected.

L106 and throughout: please be consistent with how you refer to your control group. You often switch between calling them the experimental group, the groups supplemented with Multikraft…, groups supplemented with pro-health supplements, etc. Please stick with calling them the experimental group, not switching back and forth, particularly in the results. OK, corrected.

L100: were treatment groups allocated evenly across barns? Or were treatment groups housed in separate barns? I do not feel this study is valid if treatment groups were housed in separate barns. The research was carried out on one farm, in two neighboring twin buildings. The study plans did not assume that control fattening pigs would receive antibiotics prescribed by a veterinarian. This doctor's decision was made in the course of advanced research. The scale of health problems and falls of fattening pigs on the entire commercial farm was similar to that during the research in the building of a control group of pigs.

L204: was sex included in your model as a random effect? What about barn (if not confounded with treatment)? In our research, for strict qualitative research on the farm, we selected 60 gilts and 60 barrows of similar body weight. Due to the fact that gender was 1:1, we did not include its influence in the statistical model. It also results from the fact that gender did not influence the analyzed traits.

L209: mortality should not be analyzed with a simple 1-way ANOVA, as it is not a continuous variable. Further, what are the statistics (P-values) associated with your mortality results? What this not statistically analyzed? If not, you should not make so many mortality claims in your results and discussion. Mortality was determined for a given group of fattening pigs for the entire fattening period. Therefore, the P-value could not be determined.

L210: “clearly indicated” is pretty strong language. Please tone this down. OK, corrected.

L212: did the control pigs receive antibiotics because of the Salmonella? This is how it sounds from your wording. However, from the methods, it seems as though antibiotic inclusion was a choice made prior to the experiment. Please restate this to better reflect the truth. Yes, I corrected this to better reflect the truth in the part of the publication - Material and Methods and Results.

L215: If you did not analyze or do cost analysis, you should not include this information regarding cost in the results. In the Results section of the publication, I added information regarding the cost of production for the experimental and control groups.

L222: Again, carcass meatiness? I am fairly certain you mean percent lean or lean percent. Yes, lean percent. Corrected.

Tables: please include P-values in your tables. Completed.

Discussion: in general, this is very hard to follow. While although some of this is due to the grammatical errors found throughout, the authors do not do a very good job of integrating their findings with previous researchers’ findings and they often bounce back and forth between topics and supplement types, which makes it hard to read. This should be rewritten. We believe that it is difficult to write a discussion in which the experimental group received several supplements and no one has studied such a solution before - most of the available scientific publications analyze one of our supplements in the research. Moreover, we did not find any publications analyzing the quality of carcass and meat as a result of using Multikraft. Moreover, we did not find any publications analyzing the production results, carcass and meat quality as a result of using Multikraft. Therefore, the form of discussion dominates in which the results obtained are related to the research of other authors on the use of probiotics, herbs and ascorbic acid.

L264-267: what results are similar? Please include. Corrected sentence.

L281: they postulated or actually observed greater dry matter of IMF? Big difference in terms of how to interpret this finding. Actually they observed statistical significant greater dry matter of IMF.  I added the values obtained by them in the publication.

L337: hypostatize??? Corrected sentence.

L390: again, you should not make production cost claims. This information has been completed in the Results section

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript by Rybarczyk and Moroch the effect of dietary supplementation of herbal-probiotics, ascorbic acid and allicin on pig livability and quality characteristics of pork. This is a hot topic after antibiotics has been banned to be used in the feed industry. But the experimental design needs to be well explained. The following revision could improve the quality of the paper.

 

1. The writing is very poor and need to be seriously improved.
2. Title, please modified the title “Effect of dietary supplementation of finishing diets…”. There are two “diet” in this sentence.
3. Abstract, please add the experimental design in the abstract.
4. Lines 95-127, the experimental design is very hard to be understand. How many groups, replicates and pigs have been used in the study?
5. Line 219, Table 2, please add the information in the table note. Such as: how many replicates have been used? The value are expressed as mean±SD or SE?
6. Line 228, please add the repliactes n=? in the table note of table 3. Please check throughout the paper with the similar issues.
7. Line 225, please correct “P≤0.01” to “P ≤ 0.01” and make all the P value consistent throughout the paper.
8. Line 229, why not use the full name of “IMF – intramuscular fat” in the table, such as “Muscle thickness”, “Total protein” and other index.
9. Line 256, please check the right way to express “[mg/kg wet tissue]” in the table 6. Make it consistent with others throughout the paper.
10. It is not the right way to express “Elements [mg/kg wet tissue]” in the first row, and then writing “Cholesterol (mg/100 g)” in the below.

Author Response

1. Title, please modified the title “Effect of dietary supplementation of finishing diets…”. There are two “diet” in this sentence. OK, corrected.
2. Abstract, please add the experimental design in the abstract. OK, information has been added.
3. Lines 95-127, the experimental design is very hard to be understand. How many groups, replicates and pigs have been used in the study? OK, agree, corrected. Table 2 presents the number of fatteners in each group.
4. Line 219, Table 2, please add the information in the table note. Such as: how many replicates have been used? The value are expressed as mean±SD or SE? OK, corrected. In part of publication „Statistical analysis” it is stated that the tables contain mean values and their standard error.
5. Line 228, please add the repliactes n=? in the table note of table 3. Please check throughout the paper with the similar issues. OK, corrected.
6. Line 225, please correct “P≤0.01” to “P ≤ 0.01” and make all the P value consistent throughout the paper. OK, agree, corrected.
7. Line 229, why not use the full name of “IMF – intramuscular fat” in the table, such as “Muscle thickness”, “Total protein” and other index. OK, agree, corrected. The same was done with the color characteristics of the meat.
8. Line 256, please check the right way to express “[mg/kg wet tissue]” in the table 6. Make it consistent with others throughout the paper. OK, corrected.
9. It is not the right way to express “Elements [mg/kg wet tissue]” in the first row, and then writing “Cholesterol (mg/100 g)” in the below. OK, corrected.

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper is of interest, but some improvements are needed in both the statistical analyses, the discussion, the organization of the results/tables/discussion and the reading of the paper for English

1. The statistical model is not clear. The authors should further develop the statistical analyses and how the database was prepared and how they checked their data. This paper would help and guide the authors for their presentation and new analyses as in point 5 below https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2018.03.004
2. The results of Table 2-6 should be prepared differently. Please remove the letters a or b and add a new column for the p-values. The letters of significant differences are only used when there are more than 3 comparisons. All the tables should be checked.
3. The discussion should be organized by parameters, in the current version it is a long text without any key home messages. Thus, please add headings and informative titles that would allow to better understand and digest the work. Please, refer also to recent studies and avoid self citations.
4. Correlation analyses among the variables are missing in this study. The authors should add these analyses, present the results and discuss them.
5. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) will bring more scientific quality to this paper. Please add such analysis and discuss accordingly.
6. English can be further checked as some sentences are redundant.

Author Response

1. The statistical model is not clear. The authors should further develop the statistical analyses and how the database was prepared and how they checked their data. This paper would help and guide the authors for their presentation and new analyses as in point 5 below https://doi.org/10.1016/j.meatsci.2018.03.004. In our statistical analysis, everything is clear - fatteners were selected for the study with similar body weight or carcass weight, with an equal gender share.
2. The results of Table 2-6 should be prepared differently. Please remove the letters a or b and add a new column for the p-values. The letters of significant differences are only used when there are more than 3 comparisons. All the tables should be checked. OK, agree, corrected.
3. The discussion should be organized by parameters, in the current version it is a long text without any key home messages. Thus, please add headings and informative titles that would allow to better understand and digest the work. Please, refer also to recent studies and avoid self citations. OK, we add headings. We would like to emphasize that in the publication we did not cite our own publications (self citations).
4. Correlation analyses among the variables are missing in this study. The authors should add these analyses, present the results and discuss them. Of course, we can calculate the correlation coefficients, but you need to think about what features and what would we like to prove by calculating them?
5. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) will bring more scientific quality to this paper. Please add such analysis and discuss accordingly. An interesting proposal may be an inspiration to write an additional publication based on PCA and correlation coefficients.
6. English can be further checked as some sentences are redundant. English language has been corrected in a few sentences. Please indicate which sentences are not needed in the publication?

 

 

 

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors did not correct spelling and grammatical errors throughout, rather only addressed my initial concerns. The bulk of this paper is still riddled with grammatical errors. This is a significant problem that must be remedied.

Additionally, the author's did not do a good job of addressing my main concern with this paper - the housing of pigs in 2 different barns. The entire paper is confounded by Salmonella presence. The authors should include proof that the disease burden was the same in the 2 barns, or acknowledge this fault extensively.

Reviewer 2 Report

Thanks for your clarification. No further comments.