The Effect of Fucoidan, Probiotic and Antibiotic on Growth Indices, Gut Microbiota and Blood Parameters in Broiler Chickens

This experiment was conducted to compare the effect of adding fucoidal, probiotic and antibiotic in diet on performance, carcass characteristics, gut microbial population, and blood metabolism in broiler chicks. A total of 250 one-day-old Ross 308 broiler chickens were randomly distributed in 5 treatments with 5 replicates and reared for 42 days. After formulation of a corn- soybean basal diet, 5 dietary treatments provided inclouding 1) without additive (as control treatment), 2) 0.02% antibiotic oxytetracycline, 3) 0.05% prebiotic fucoidan, 4) 0.02 % commercial probiotic Gallipro® and 5) 0.05% prebiotic fucoidal and 0.02% probiotic Gallipro (as synbiotic treatment). The use of antibiotics improved body weight gain and feed conversion ratio at days 10 and 24 when compared to the control treatment, while the use of probiotics was only effective in improvement of feed conversion ratio (P <0.05). The use of fucoidan and synbiotic only numerically improved body weight gain (3.88% and 3.76%, respectively) and feed conversion rates (2.31% and 4.73%, respectively) at the end of 24 days. In the birds treated with synbiotics, relative weight of abdominal fat decreased and relative weight of bursa of Fabricius increased than control treatment (P <0.05). Supplementing of antibiotic and synbiotic decreased (P <0.05) the population of coliforms in the ileum compared with control treatment. Probiotics and synbiotics treatments increased (P <0.05) the lactic acid bacteria population in the ileum and reduced serum cholesterol concentration than antibiotic group. Also serum alkaline phosphatase activity was higher (P <0.05) in probiotic and synbiotic treatments compared to control treatment. The results of this study showed that prebiotic fucoidan could be recommended in combination with probiotics as an alternative for growth promoter antibiotics to improve the growth performance and microbial population of digestive tract.