Abstract
Identification of appropriate breeds of broilers and development of new feed additives is required for the development of poultry industry at high altitude. Therefore, this experiment was conducted first to identify the suitable broiler strain for this region. One week old chicks (150) from three broiler strains, i.e. Vencobb, RIR cross-bred, and Hubbard were randomly selected and divided equally into three groups. All the chicks were provided the same basal diet. The body weight gain and feed: gain responses were significantly (P < 0.05) improved in RIR cross-bred. Mortality was also observed lower in RIR cross-bred. Thereafter, the second trial was conducted in RIR cross-bred to evaluate the effect of probiotic supplementation (T1@ 9 gm/kg feed, T2@ 18 gm/kg feed) on their performance and mortality. No significant differences (P > 0.05) were observed in weight gain, feed intake, feed: gain, and water intake among the three groups, however, mortality from ascites and coccidiosis was reduced in probiotic treated groups. Hence, our results suggest that RIR cross-bred is suitable for rearing in high altitude regions and probiotic supplementation has no beneficial effects on production performance of broilers at high altitude. However, probiotic supplementation indicated lesser loss due to mortality of birds.
Highlights
Animal health against pathogens, enhanced immune response, reduced antibiotic use, and show a high index of safety[10,11,12]
Bacillus coagulans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been used as a source of probiotics for improving growth performance and feed conversion ratio of broiler chickens due to their property of competitive exclusion which reduces the microbial load of harmful microbe[16,17,18]
We evaluated the growth performance of three different broiler strains at high altitude using body weight gain (BWG), feed intake, feed: gain (FCR), and water intake parameters
Summary
Animal health against pathogens, enhanced immune response, reduced antibiotic use, and show a high index of safety[10,11,12]. Bacillus coagulans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae have been used as a source of probiotics for improving growth performance and feed conversion ratio of broiler chickens due to their property of competitive exclusion which reduces the microbial load of harmful microbe[16,17,18]. Commercially available probiotic (BiobloomT, M/S Zydus Animal Health Limited, India) which contains above microbes was fed to the experimental birds. This probiotic has been extensively used in commercial livestock rearing[19,20,21]. In the present study, we first evaluated the growth performance of different strains of broiler chicken and further, we investigated the effect of commercially available probiotic supplementation on the performance of most adaptable broiler strain at high altitude
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