Effects of dietary probiotic supplementation on performance of broiler chicks fed on diets including full-fat sunflower seed.

The present study was conducted to evaluate full-fat sunflower seed (FFSS) as a source of protein and energy and determine the effect of supplemental probiotic on the nutrient value of FFSS-based diet. Four hundred day-old Cobb broiler chicks were divided into 40 pens. Ten pens of birds were randomly assigned to each of four dietary treatment groups. A corn-wheat-soybean-based control diet (A) was formulated and three other iso-caloric and is-nitrogenous corn-wheat-soybean-based diets containing FFSS were prepared with and without two various commercial probiotics and named diet B (with no probiotic), C (Bioplus 2B -supplemented diet), and D (Biosaf -supplemented diet). Body weight (BW) and feed intake (FI) was measured on 21, 42 and 49 days of age. Data were subjected to analysis of variance as a completely randomized design using the GLM procedure of SAS. Body weight of chicks fed on FFSS-based diets was higher than those fed on control diet on day 49 of age. Chicks fed on FFSS-based diets had better feed conversion ratio (FCR) than chicks in control group during period of 3-49 days. Probiotic had no statistically significant effect on BW, FI and FCR.