Abstract
BackgroundThe excessive use of antibiotics in the livestock feed industry caused inevitable side effects of microbial resistance. Besides this residual antibiotics in animal-derived foodstuff imposed serious health problems for humans. So this study aimed to investigate the potential use of Bacillus velezensis to substitute antibiotics for poultry production. A total of 468, 49-week-old Hy-Line Brown chickens, were randomly divided into four groups the control group (regular diet), experiment group I (0.1% B. veleznesis), experiment group II (0.2% B. veleznesis), and antibiotic group (50 mg/kg flavomycin), with three replicates per group and trial period consisted on 42 days.ResultsThe results showed that, compared with the control group, the average egg production rate and daily feed intake of experimental groups I and II increased significantly (P < 0.05), while the average egg weight was increased in experimental group II as compared to (I) (P < 0.01). The feed conversion ratio was decreased (P > 0.05) in group (II) Egg quality parameters such as yolk weight of the experimental group II was increased, but that of the antibiotic group and experiment group I was decreased, neither significant (P > 0.05). Moreover, the eggshell strength, yolk color, albumen height, and Haugh unit were significantly increased (P < 0.05). Compared with the control group, probiotic groups can increase the progesterone and motilin (P > 0.05) but decrease the secretin and cholecystokinin in the blood plasma (P > 0.05).ConclusionsThis study suggested that B. velezensis can substitute in-feed-antibiotics and improved most of the study parameters significantly. Which suggested that B. velezensis has potential future application value to replace the feed antibiotics.
Highlights
Antibiotics are chemical substance produced by microorganisms which can resist pathogens to improve human and animal health as well as improve the quality of food products
A high proportion of antibiotics added to animal feed is excreted in animal’s urine or manure, causing water pollution which could be great harm to water sources and human health [12, 13]
A significant decrease in eggshell strength (ESS) was observed in both experimental groups as compared to the control and antibiotics group
Summary
Antibiotics are chemical substance produced by microorganisms which can resist pathogens to improve human and animal health as well as improve the quality of food products. The Use of antibiotics in animal production imposes a serious selection pressure on microbes which are exposed to sub-inhibitory doses of antibiotics This has raised the problem of antibiotic resistance through mutation and gene transfer [10]. It is feared that banning the use of antibiotics may have adverse effects on animal health and farmers’ profits. The excessive use of antibiotics in the livestock feed industry caused inevitable side effects of microbial resistance. Besides this residual antibiotics in animal-derived foodstuff imposed serious health problems for humans. A total of 468, 49-week-old Hy-Line Brown chickens, were randomly divided into four groups the control group (regular diet), experiment group I (0.1% B. veleznesis), experiment group II (0.2% B. veleznesis), and antibiotic group (50 mg/kg flavomycin), with three replicates per group and trial period consisted on 42 days
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