Effect of Chicory Extract and Probiotic on Performance, Caracas Characteristics, Blood Parameters, Intestinal Microflora and Immune Response of Broiler Chickens

The innovation of antibiotic growth promoters in poultry production has brought fundamental economic advantage. However, their long-time utilization leads to enhance manifestation of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It becomes more and more difficult to deal with bacteria mediated infections. Therefore, alternatives to traditional antibiotic growth promoters, which can promote livestock performance without generating drug-resistance, are urgently needed. Medicinal herbs have potential to act as antibiotic growth promoters to alternatives due to their beneficial effects of antimicrobial actions. Recently, many materials have been innovated as a superseded to antibiotics such as probiotics, prebiotics and medicinal plants. Probiotics increase production performance by reducing the nutrients available for noxious bacteria and also reduce the production of toxic bacterial metabolites. Chicory plant due to its special characteristics and ingredients is used as an herbal medicine. All parts of this plant especially roots have medicinally important compounds. There are not many reports regarding to use chicory extract in broiler chickens. Therefore, this experiment was conducted in order to evaluate effect of different levels of chicory plant extract on performance, blood parameters, intestinal microflora and immune response of broiler chickens.
Material and In order to evaluate chicory extract and probiotics on performance, carcass characteristics and blood parameters, a completely randomized design with five treatments and three replicates was carried out with 180 Ross 308 male chickens in 42 days. The treatments included: 1- control diet; 2- control diet Virjiniomaysin antibiotic (150 mg/kg diet); 3- control diet 爘鲢 extract (3ml/L); 4- control diet ᦩ斊髨 probiotics (300 mg/kg diet) and 5- diet containing chicory extract and probiotics (3ml/L and 300 mg/kg diet). For preparing dietary treatments, a basal diet was formulated to meet or exceed the nutrient recommendations for broiler chickens according to NRC requirements. Feed and water provides as ad libitum for birds throughout the experiment. Body weight gain, feed intake, and feed conversion ratio were determined during the experiment. Birds were reared on litter floor pen and a continuous lighting program with 23 h light and 1 h darkness was used. At the end of experiment, after 8 h of fasting, two chickens from each replicate were selected for performance, carcass characteristics, blood parameters and intestinal microflora assay. Blood samples were collected from the brachial vein and plasma by centrifugation of the noncoagulated blood at 3000 × g for 10 min. The plasma samples were kept in the deep freezer until analysis for determining blood parameters. In order to assay immunity response at 28 and 35 days age, 0.1 ml sheep red blood cell was injected to two birds of each replicates and after seven days from injection 2 ml blood samples were taken form brachial vein.
Treatments did not have any significant effect on feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion ratio (P>0.05). Carcass, breast, thigh, liver and bursa fabricius percentages, were not affected by treatments (P>0.05). The results showed a significant decrease in the abdominal fat of treatment 5 fed with chicory extract and probiotics. Chicory extract may provide direct functional support to digestive reactions in the body. First of all, chicory root increases the flow of bile, which supports digestion, because extra bile helps break down fats, therefore supplementation chicory extract to diet could lead to decreasing abdominal fat. Analysis of variance of data did not reveal any significant effect on blood glucose, triglycerides and VLDL concentrations. The lowest concentration of cholesterol and highest concentration of HDL were obtained in group 5 and control group. Whereas the decrease in blood HDL and cholesterol level might be due to the properties of chicory leaf extract to stimulate lactic acid producing bacteria secreting the hydrolase that in turn converts bile salts into de-conjugated bile acids and ultimately resulted in the reduced serum cholesterol level. Experimental treatments did not affect antibody titer (IgG¡ IgM), although IgG titers tend to reduce. Prebiotics act as an alternative treatment to antibiotics and chemicals, and play the role of alarm molecules to activate the immune system. Probiotic bacteria include the adherence capability, antagonism against pathogens and production of extracellular enzymes.
The results of this experiment suggested that adding combination of chicory extract and probiotics into broiler diets can reduced abdominal fat percentage and enhance immunity response.
Material and In order to evaluate of chicory extract and probiotic on performance, caracass characteristics and blood parameters a completely randomized design with five treatments and three replicates was carried out with 180 Ross 308 male chickens in grower periods. The treatments included 1: control diet; 2: control diet Virjiniomaysin antibiotic (150 mg/kg diet); 3: control diet 爘鲢 extract (3ml/L); 4: control diet ᦩ斊髨 probiotic (30O mg/kg diet) and 5: diet containing chicory extract and probiotic. For preparing dietary treatments, a basal diet was formulated to meet or exceed the nutrient recommendations for broiler chickens according to NRC requirements. Feed and water provides as ad libitum for birds throughout the experiment. Body weight gain, feed intake, and feed conversion ratio were determined during the experiment. Birds were reared on litter floor pen and a continuous lighting program with 23 h light and 1 h darkness was used. At the end of experiment, after 8 h of fasting, two male chickens from each replicate were selected for performance, Caracas characteristics, blood parameters and intestinal microflora assay. Blood samples were collected from the brachial vein and Serum was obtained by centrifugation of the coagulated blood at 3000 × g for 10 min. The sera samples kept in the deep freezer until analysis for determining blood parameters. In order to assay immunity response at 28 and 35 of age, 0.1 ml sheep red blood cell was injected to two birds of each replicates and after seven days from injection 2 ml blood samples were taken form brachial vein.
Effect of treatment didn’t significant effect on feed intake, body weight gain and feed conversion (P>0.05). Carcass, breast, thigh, liver and bursa fabricius percentages, were not affected by treatments (P>0.05).The results showed a significant decrease in the abdominal fat in birds of treatment group 5 that inclusion with chicory extract and probiotic. Chicory may provide direct functional support to the digestive reactions in the body. First of all, chicory root increases the flow of bile, which supports digestion. Because extra bile helps break down fats, therefore supplementation chicory extract to diet could lead to decreasing abdominal fat. Analysis of variance of data did not reveal any significant effect on blood glucose, triglycerides LDL and VLDL concentrations but HDL and cholesterol concentrations did affect with inclusion of treatments. Whereas the decrease in blood HDL and cholesterol level might be due to the properties of chicory leaf extract to stimulate lactic acid producing bacteria secreting the hydrolase that in turn converts bile salts into de-conjugated bile acids and ultimately resulted in the reduced serum cholesterol level. Immune response for SRBC were markedly enhanced by chicory extract plus probiotic treatment (group 5) as compared to other group. Prebiotics act as an alternative treatment to antibiotics and chemicals, and play the role of alarm molecules to activate the immune system. Probiotic bacteria include the adherence capability, antagonism against pathogens and production of extracellular enzymes
In conclusion, the results of this experiment suggested that adding combination of chicory extract and probiotics combined in broiler diets can reduced abdominal fat and enhance immunity response.