Indian Journal of Animal Research

The experiment was designed for 42 days to assess dietary supplementation of Bacillus Subtilis (Galli Pro-DSM 17299) on growth performance and intestinal health against C. perfringens induced necrotic enteritis in broiler birds. Birds (n=400) were divided in to four groups [healthy (control), infected, healthy supplemented with B. subtilis @ 500 g/T of feed (1.2 x 10⁶ cfu/g); infected supplemented with B. Subtilis@ 500 g/T] with five replicates of 20 birds in each group. Necrotic enteritis was induced in broiler birds via inoculation of 50, 000 oocysts of mixed strains of Eimeria species on 14 days of age followed by C. perfringens (10⁷ cfu/mL) on 17, 18 and 19 days of age. Study revealed that necrotic enteritis challenge suppressed the body weight gain significantly, whereas infected birds supplemented with Bacillus subtilis showed significantly higher body weight gain. The feed intake and feed conversion ratio was not significantly affected in any of the groups. Significant reduction was noticed in bacterial count of C. perfringens infected birds supplemented with B. subtilis. Intestinal damage was observed in the infected control birds while it was recovered in birds supplemented with B. subtilis. The significant beneficial effect of B. Subtilis was recorded in the production performance of broiler chicken even in the absence of necrotic enteritis challenge. Thus it was concluded that supplementation of B. Subtilis helps to improve body weight gain and gut health to control necrotic enteritis.