Effects of prebiotics and probiotics on the performance and bacterial colonization of broiler chickens

A.M Abudabos,H.A Al-Batshan,M.A Murshed

doi:10.4314/sajas.v45i4.8

A.M Abudabos, H.A Al-Batshan + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.4314/sajas.v45i4.8

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Abstract

A study was undertaken to evaluate the effects of Neoxyval (antimicrobial growth promoter (AGP)), TechnoMos (prebiotic), GalliPro (probiotic) and a mixture of TechnoMos and GalliPro (symbiotic) on growth performance, carcass yield, histomorphology and intestinal bacterial counts in broilers (0 d to 42 d). Two hundred day-old Ross (308) broilers were allocated to five experimental treatments: T1 = control (CONT), T2 = T1 + Neoxyval, T3 = T1 + Gallipro, T4 = T1+ TechnoMos and T5 = T1+ Gallipro+ TechnoMos. The results revealed that birds that received T2, T4 and T3 gained more weight and converted feed more efficiently than those in T1 and T5. Longer ileal villi (492.9 µm) were recorded in birds that received T4 compared with T1 (424.7 µm) and T2 (439.9 µm). Conversely, jejunal villi length and width were not influenced by treatment. T3 eliminated Clostridium perfringens from the ileum, but not from the caecum. Generally, birds that received T3 and T5 performed similar to the AGP group, T2. The results from this study indicated that the probiotic (T3) and prebiotic (T4) used in this trial could serve as alternatives to AGP (T2). Enhancement in the performance of broilers could be explained partially by improvement in intestinal morphology and microbial balance associated with modulation of intestinal microflora and inhibition of pathogens.

Highlights

The use of antibiotics in poultry feed at sub-therapeutic level as an antimicrobial growth promoters (AGP) has been beneficial to growth performance and has reduced the populations in the gastrointestinal tract of potentially pathogenic organisms such as Clostridium perfringens, Salmonella and Escherichia coli and diseases associated with these pathogenic bacteria (Hume, 2011)
Body weight gain, food intake (FI) and mortality corrected feed conversion ratio (FCR) of the birds at different ages are shown in Tables 3 - 5
The results revealed that FI was not affected by any dietary treatments (P >0.05) while bodyweight gain (BWG) and FCR were influenced by dietary treatments (P

Summary

Introduction

The use of antibiotics in poultry feed at sub-therapeutic level as an antimicrobial growth promoters (AGP) has been beneficial to growth performance and has reduced the populations in the gastrointestinal tract of potentially pathogenic organisms such as Clostridium perfringens, Salmonella and Escherichia coli and diseases associated with these pathogenic bacteria (Hume, 2011). Many antimicrobials given to animals are of the same class as those used to treat human infections, which lead to an increasing concern about crossresistance and multiple antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria. This would pose a risk to public health (Tollefson et al, 1998) with the concern that many antibiotics that are currently available for treating human diseases would not be effective in future (Casewell et al, 2003; Smith et al, 2003; Castanon, 2007). The European Union (EU) banned antibiotic use in animal production in 2006

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