Preparation of probiotics cocktail from chicken gut flora and evaluation of its effect on immune response and growth performance of broiler chicks

Abstract

The poultry industry is one of the fastest growing meat producing animal industries. Feed efficiency and high performance of the birds are the crucial goals in poultry production. Feed additives are non-nutritive compounds that are added to livestock rations to improve the efficiency of feed utilization and feed acceptance. Over more than six decades dietary antibiotics have been used not only as a means to control infectious diseases but also to improve growth performance and feed efficiency. The most preferred and effective alternative to antibiotics is probiotics. It plays an important role as growth promoter and pathogens inhibitor in poultry industry. Probiotics defined as “live microbial feed supplements which beneficially affect the host animal by improving its intestinal microbial balance”. There are many reports concerning the effect of using probiotics including Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, Bacillus, Streptococcus, Pediococcus, Enterococcus, and yeast such as Saccharomyces cerevisiae on the different performance parameters in chickens including immune status and feed efficiency in broilers. A cocktail of selected bacteria of Lactobacilli, Streptococci and Bacillus are known to be beneficial probiotics. So a mixture of these microorganisms are prepared and introduced to broiler via water. This study was initiated with the objective of preparation of probiotics cocktail mixture from nonpathogenic gut flora of