AUTHOR=Nusairat Basheer , Wang Jeng-Jie 

TITLE=Xylanase and Direct-Fed Microbials (DFM) Potential for Improvement of Live Performance, Energy Digestibility, and Reduction of Environmental Microbial Load of Broilers

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Veterinary Science

VOLUME=Volume 7 - 2020

YEAR=2020

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/veterinary-science/articles/10.3389/fvets.2020.606415

DOI=10.3389/fvets.2020.606415

ISSN=2297-1769

ABSTRACT=The challenge of identifying alternatives to subtherapeutic levels of antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) in animal feed has led to increased interest in feed additives such as exogenous enzymes and direct-fed microbials (DFM). Six corn-soy-based dietary treatments were designed to investigate the effect of high-efficiency xylanase alone, Bacillus spp. probiotics alone, and their combination versus a commonly used antibiotic growth promoter (BMD; Bacitracin methylene disalicylate) on live performance, and environmental Clostridium perfringens load of broiler chickens with 8 replicate pens per treatment. Diets were: standard diet (Positive control; PC); 130 kcal/kg reduced energy diet (Negative control; NC); NC with xylanase (NC+Xy); NC with probiotics (NC+Pro); NC with xylanase and probiotics mix (NC+XyPro); and NC with BMD (NC+BMD). Data were analyzed as one-way ANOVA. At 35 and 42 d, birds fed NC+XyPro and NC+BMD were heavier (P<0.05) than birds fed NC. Improvement in FCR (P=0.0001) was observed from 1-42 d by approximately 3 points in both NC+XyPro and NC+BMD compared to NC. The NC+XyPro reduced lesion scores by 66% compared to PC and NC. Litter C. perfringens cell count was reduced by approximately 16% with supplementation of XyPro or BMD. It can be concluded that a blend of xylanase (10 XU/g feed) and Bacillus spp (1 x 105 CFU/g feed) can be used as an alternative to AGP in low-energy broiler diets.