Effects of Dietary Supplementation with Probiotics, Prebiotic and Synbiotic on Performance and Intestinal Microbial Population of Broiler Chickens

An experiment was conducted to investigate the effect of probiotic, prebiotic and synbiotic on performance and Lactobacillus population in broiler chickens. Six hundred and thirty 1-d-old broiler chicks were used in a completely randomized design with 7 treatments and 6 replicates of 15 birds per replicate. Dietary treatments were; 1) basal diet (control diet without supplemental additives), 2) basal diet + probiotic of Perimalac, 3) basal diet + prebiotic of Technomos, 4) basal diet + prebiotic of fermacto, 5) basal diet + perimalac+ technomos, 6) basal diet + perimalac + Fermacto and 7) basal diet + symbiotic of Biomin IMBO. Parameters that were measured were: Feed intake, body weight gain, Feed conversion ratio and Lactobacillus population in ileum and cecum. In the starter period the body weight gain was significantly increased by the inclusion of combination of Perimalac + Fermacto as compared with the control (P<0. 05). In this experiment, feed intake was not affected by treatments (P > 0.05). During the starter period the treatments containing of Perimalac + Fermacto and Synbiotic Biomin, and during the grower and total periods the treatments containing Perimalac + Fermacto led to significant improvement in feed conversion ratio compared with the control group (P<0. 05). In the 23 and 42 days of the experiment, the treatments containing Fermacto alone, or Perimalac + Fermacto and Synbiotic increased the lactobacillus population in in the ileum and cecum in compared with the control group (P<0. 05). In conclusion, combination of probiotic and prebiotic improved the overall performance and increased intestinal population of Lactobacilli in broiler chickens.