02/02/2018: A trial: Improving quality whilst reducing antibiotic growth promoters

by Marie-Christin Reismann, Leiber GmbH, Germany

Reducing the usage of antibiotics in broiler farming is a relevant topic in the poultry nutrition sector
 

Prebiotics can maintain an animal’s health by playing an important role in balancing the intestinal flora and the intestinal immune system’s function. Yeast cells have an effect on the sustenance of the gut associated lymphoid tissue and they are useful for an optimal responsiveness of the GALT as a barrier and line of the first defense in a body.
 

Figure 1: Housing diagram
Image credit: Leiber

Biolex® MB40 consists entirely of cell walls of pure brewers’ yeast (isolated from Saccharomyces cerevisiae) classified as mannanoligosaccharides (MOS). MOS are considered as prebiotics due to their main benefit on growing out a positive intestinal flora and strengthening the balance of the intestinal microflora proved by several scientific reports. In this trial should be shown the influence of Biolex® MB40 in comparison to an antibiotic growth promoter (AGP) on performance parameters and chicken processing response.

Trial design
The trial was performed by the University of Arkansas (Dr. Steven Ricke, Department of Food Science) on a commercial research farm located in the United States. Three houses have been chosen with each house containing 15, 300 Hubbard x Cobb birds. Additionally, three pens in two locations were set up within in each house and twenty birds from each group were randomly placed in one pen at each location to avoid a housing effect (Figure 1).

There were four phases of feeding: a commercial starter, grower and finisher one and two. The test groups only had differences in the feed supplementation: group one: 0.5 percent AGP and group two: 0.2 percent Biolex® MB40. The trial animals, which have been housed in the separate pens were weighed at 14, 28, 40 and 53 days of age. In addition, 100 further birds (50 males and 50 females) from each house have been randomly selected for analysing weight of carcasses without giblets (WOG), wing, skin breast and tender. These birds were located in the house but outside the separated pens and had an age of 53 days.

Results and discussion
Adding 0.2 percent Biolex® MB40 to the feed of broilers showed a more improved final weight at the end of the trial. The group with the prebiotic in their feed performed better than the group without tested additives and the group with AGP as supplement (Table 1). These data show that Biolex® MB40 as a prebiotic can be used as an AGP replacement with benefits.

Read the full article, HERE.

 

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