Abstract
SummaryThe objective of the study was to test the effect of a direct fed microbial (DFM) on the performance of broilers compared to an antibiotic growth promoter under large scale, commercial production settings. Three dietary treatments were tested in a completely randomized design including: 1) a control (C) diet containing 500 FTU/kg phytase and a mixture of xylanase, amylase, protease ; 2) C+ a specific three-strain combination of Bacillus spp. (DFM) and 3) C+ bacitracin methylene disalicylate (BMD). Six, similar commercial broiler houses (15,300 birds per house) were used to give two replicate houses per treatment. The birds (Hubbard x Cobb500) were fed pelleted and crumbled diets ad libitum throughout the 44 day trial period. Due to the large scale, commercial nature of the trial, no significant differences were observed in production parameters among treatments, except that DFM treatment resulted in significantly lower mortality numbers in the last two days (43 to 44d) compared to the control. However, the DFM treatment group showed numerically higher live bodyweight, lower feed conversion ratio (corrected for body weight and mortality) and lower total mortality weight compared to either the control or BMD groups, resulting in an improved production efficiency factor. When compared to control, using DFM resulted in a gross benefit of US$ 0.06 /bird, while using BMD was not cost effective. In conclusion, DFM containing a three-strain combination of Bacillus spp. may be used as an alternative to antibiotic growth promoters, resulting in economic benefit under commercial production settings in broilers fed commercial diets.
Highlights
In today’s poultry production systems, disease challenges caused by various pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella spp., Clostridium perfringens and Campylobacter spp. are of major economic concern (Jayaraman et al, 2013)
Three dietary treatments were tested in two replicate poultry houses, which were randomly assigned to treatments 1) a control (C) diet containing 500 FTU/kg phytase (Phyzyme® XP, Danisco Animal Nutrition/DuPont, Marlborough, Wiltshire, UK, and an enzyme mix containing xylanase, amylase, protease (Axtra® XAP, Danisco Animal Nutrition/DuPont, Marlborough, Wiltshire, UK); 2) C + Direct-fed microbials (DFMs); 3) C+ Bacitracin Methylene Disalicylate (BMD) (Zoetis, 100 Campus Drive, Florham Park, NJ 07932, United States)
Weight gains were not significantly affected by dietary treatment, the DFM diet resulted in numerically higher mean body weights, weight gains and total live bodyweight production when compared to the control and BMD groups (Table 2)
Summary
In today’s poultry production systems, disease challenges caused by various pathogens such as E. coli, Salmonella spp., Clostridium perfringens and Campylobacter spp. are of major economic concern (Jayaraman et al, 2013). Antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) are used to reduce the impact of these pathogens and control diseases. With increasing public concerns regarding bacterial resistance to antibiotics, AGPs have been banned in animal feed in Europe since 2006 and it is expected that in the near future their use will be eliminated from animal feed in other countries. Finding alternatives to AGPs has long been of interest to the feed industry. Many studies have shown that DFMs are potential alternatives to AGPs in animal feed (Applegate et al, 2010; Amerah et al, 2013a). DFMs are effective in improving immune response and growth performance of broilers (Lee et al, 2010a,b; Lutful Kabir, 2009)
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