Performance, Gut Integrity, Enterobacteria Content in Ceca of Broiler Fed Different Eubiotic Additives

Abstract

An experiment was carried out to study the effect of different eubiotics on productive characteristics, intestinal integrity, as well as the content of enterobacteria in the cecum of broiler chickens. A completely randomized design with five treatments and 8 replicates of 25 birds each was used. In total 1000 mixed broiler chickens from Ross308 strain, one day old were obtained from a commercial hatchery. The birds were housed on concrete floors in a conventional house. A sorghum+soybean meal control diet was used, to which the additives under study were added. The treatments were distributed as follows: T1 = Control diet without antibiotic or eubiotic; T2 = T1 + bacteriophages; T3 = T1 + antibiotic; T4 = T1 + probiotic; T5 = T1 + symbiotic. The results obtained at 49 days of age for weight gain and feed conversion rate improved (p<0.05) with the addition of the antibiotic and eubiotics. A lower (p<0.05) intestinal density was observed with the probiotic. The height, width, and area of villi in duodenum was higher (p<0.05) when antibiotic and eubiotics were included. In the histological score, in duodenum, the antibiotic and eubiotics resulted with a higher score (p<0.05), associated to a physiological and controlled inflammation response that allowed improving productivity. Finally, the relative expression of enterobacteria, such as Lactobacillus salivarius, allowed associating positive changes in the microbiome and better productive parameters when including the symbiotic, with comparable results to the antibiotic when including the eubiotics.