Journal of Experimental Agriculture International

The effect of supplementation of probiotic and/or carbohydrase on performance and gut health in broiler chickens was studied.
Diet 1 was the basal diet with no supplement while diets 2, 3, 4 and 5 were supplemented with antibiotic, probiotic, carbohydrase and combination of probiotic and carbohydrase, respectively in a randomized complete block design.
The experiment was carried out at the Poultry Unit of the Teaching and Research Farm, University of Ibadan, Nigeria between March and April, 2013. 240 one-day-old broiler chickens were allotted to 5 diets with 6 replicates of 8 birds each in a 35-day experiment. On day 35, birds were sacrificed and digesta samples from the duodenum, ileum, caecum and colon were collected for microbial load count. Digesta viscosity and pH from the ileum were also determined. Sections of the ileum were obtained for morphological measurements.
Result showed that diet had no effect on the feed intake, dry matter intake and feed conversion ratio of birds at starter (d 0-21), grower phases (d 22-35) and overall period (d 0-35). Body weight gain was significantly (P = .05) improved at d 0-21 and 22-35 with the addition of probiotic and/or carbohydrase but not at d 0-35. Diet had no effect on the microbiota in the various segments of the GIT of birds. Coliform counts of birds fed diet supplemented with carbohydrase were significantly (P = .05) higher (5.64 x 106 cfu/ml) than the values in other diets. The crypt depth, villus height, villus width and villus height:crypt depth ratio were not affected by diet. Highest digesta viscosity (1072mPa) was recorded in birds on the negative control while the least digesta viscosity (529mPa) was observed in birds on diet supplemented with carbohydrase enzyme.
It is concluded that probiotic and/or carbohydrase are viable feed supplements in wheat-based diets for broilers.