Effects of dietary probiotic and prebiotic supplementation on growth performance and serum IgG concentration of broilers

This study was conducted to investigate the effects of probiotic and/or prebiotic supplementation on growth performance and serum IgG concentrations in broilers. One thousand two hundred one-day old Ross-308 broiler chicks of mixed sex were randomly divided into four treatment groups of 300 birds each. The treatments were: Starter diets: 1) Unsupplemented control diet; 2) Probiotic (Bio-Plus 2B® 0.05%); 3) Prebiotic (Bio-Mos® 0.2%); 4) Probiotic and Prebiotic mixture (Bio-Plus 2B® 0.05% and Bio-Mos® 0.2%). The grower diets were: 1) Control with no supplements; 2) Probiotic (Bio-Plus 2B® 0.05%); 3) Prebiotic (Bio-Mos® 0.1%); 4) Probiotic and Prebiotic mixture (Bio-Plus 2B® 0.05% and Bio-Mos® 0.1%). Each treatment group was further sub-divided into five replicates of 60 birds per replicate. The chicks were fed the broiler starter diet for the first 21 d and the broiler grower diet between days 22 and 42. Dietary probiotic and/or prebiotic supplementation did not significantly affect body weight, body weight gain, feed intake, carcass weight, carcass yield or concentration of immunoglobulin (IgG) in the serum. However, feed conversion ratio was improved significantly in the supplemented treatments compared to the unsupplemented control. Probiotic and/or prebiotic supplementation did not significantly affect any of the examined parameters except for an improved feed conversion ratio. Keywords: Probiotic, prebiotic, broilers, performanceSouth African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 38 (1) 2008: pp. 21-27