Effect of Dietary Probiotic and/or Prebiotic Supplementation on Growth Performance, Carcass Traits and Some Serum Biochemical Alterations in Broiler Chicken

A feeding trial was conducted to investigate the effects of dietary supplementation of prebiotic (mannan oligosaccharide, MOS), Probiotic (Lactobacilli spp.) and their combination (symbiotic) on growth performance, some carcass traits and some blood serum biochemical alterations in broilers. Two hundred, one day-old broiler chicks (Cobb) were randomly assigned to 4 dietary treatments (50 chicks/treatment) for 6 weeks. Treatment groups were as follow: 1. Basal diet (control); 2. Basal diet plus Mannan-Oligosaccharide (MOS) (0.5g of MOS/kg diet); 3. Basal diet plus probiotic (0.25g/kg diet and 4. Basal diet plus the combination of pre and probiotics (synbiotic). Statistical analysis of the obtained data indicated that prebiotic plus probiotic supplementation increased (P≤0.05) final body weight by about 15.1%, 9.5% and 7.3% when compared with control and chicks group fed on basal diet supplemented with prebiotic or prebiotic plus probiotic respectively. It was observed that prebiotic or probiotic supplementation improved total gain, feed conversion ratio, protein efficiency ratio and efficiency of energy utilization throughout the whole experimental period by about (5.0%, 2.7%, 1.96% and 2.2) and (7.4%, 6.9%, 6.7% and 6.4) respectively when compared with the control. On the other hand, combination of prebiotic and probiotic showed better results of the tested parameters when compared with the control or with prebiotic or probiotics alone supplemented chick groups. Moreover, it was noticed that both prebiotic and probiotic alone or combined supplementation reduced blood serum cholesterol, triglyceride, phospholipids and LDL concentrations and improved HDL concentration when compared with non-supplemented group. However, prebiotic (MOS containing product) significantly (P≤0.05) improved kidney function through reduction of blood serum uric acid concentration when compared with the control while probiotic (Lactobacili sp. containing product) and both prebiotic and probiotic combination had no significant effect. Prebiotic and/or probiotic supplementation improved phagocytic index, some immune organs relative weights, while had no clear effect on broiler carcass traits.