Effect of Antibiotic, Probiotic and Prebiotic in Diets Containing Barley on Performance, Digestibility, Intestinal Morphology, Blood Parameters and Immunological Response in Broilers

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to determine the effects of replacing corn by 20% barley <em>supplemented</em>with probiotic, prebiotic and antibiotic on performance, immune response, intestinal morphology, carcass development and nutrient digestibility of broilers. Four hundred Ross 308 one day-old broiler chicks were assigned randomly to 5 dietary treatments and were tested for 42 days in a completely randomized design. Six replicates were allotted to each treatment. Experimental dietary treatments included were: T1) diet based on corn and soybean meal (corn control), T2) 20% barley as s replacement for corn without any feed additive and T3, T4 and T5) 20% barley as a replacement for corn <em>with</em> 0.25 g/kg probiotic GalliPro, 1 g/kg prebiotic Fermacto and 15 mg/kg virginiamycin, respectively. There was significant difference within treatments at 42 days of age, where antibiotic treatment had a higher body weight gain than the others. The feed conversion ratio was the lowest in the antibiotic group and was the highest in T2. The use of feed barley with enzymes had considerable effect on the intestinal villi and the villus length was significantly reduced. There was no significant difference in apparent digestibility of nutrients between broiler chicks fed diets with barley or corn. Therefore apparent digestibility of nutrient data showed feed additive in barley-based diet treatments due to improve digestibility in compared to corn treatment. Relative body weight of carcass, breast, tight, liver and abdominal fat and intestinal length at 42 days were recorded. The result indicated that carcass components were not significantly affected by any treatments. The results showed that feeding barley diets with this additives could be a good alternative for corn-based diet.