Performance of Probiotics: an Alternative to Antibiotic in Broiler Production

During the last 5 to 6 decades antibiotics have been used in an increasing amount in the field of poultry production. Antibiotics are used for treatments and as growth promoters. Now-a-days there is an increasing demand to produce antibiotic free poultry and livestock. For this purpose in my experiment the chickens were fed Probiotics at the first day before providing them any feed. In the case of Probiotics (T1) treatment the Probiotics mixed water at a dose one gram (2x 109 CFU/gm) probiotic powder with four litter water were provided to them for eight hours at the first day. Then from the 2nd day to the 8th day they were provided at the same dose in the morning water per day. In the case of antibiotic & Probiotics (T2) treatment, 3 days after using antibiotics, Probiotics mixed water at the same dose was provided to them for three consecutive days in the morning water. In the case of antibiotic (T0) treatment, Probiotics were not used. In the 15th, 16th and 17th days Probiotics were again provided at the same dose mentioning above in the morning water for T1 and T2 treatment groups. Among all the treatments Probiotics showed the best weight and feed conversion rate (FCR). FCR of the Probiotics treated broilers was 75.08 % while the FCR of the T0 and T2 treated broilers were 63.78 % and 67.48 % respectively. The degree of difference in the case of immunity development was also noticeable. The event of incidence of Diarrhoea was zero for Probiotics treated broilers which indicated normal gut microflora raised from the exclusion and killing of pathogens in the intestinal tract while other treatment given groups showed Diarrhoea for several times. The mortality rates were 0 % for T1 and T2 treatments while the mortality rate was upto 10 % in the case of T0 group. Eventually the Probiotics treated broilers achieved the possibility of decreased human health risk.