Department of Poultry Science, Bombay Veterinary College Maharashtra Animal and Fishery Sciences University, Seminary Hills, Nagpur-440 006 (M.S.)
*Corresponding author: Central Avian Research Institute, Izatnagar. E.mail - chintamanimunj@yahoo.co.in
Online published on 3 November, 2011.
A trial was conducted on broiler chicks for five weeks to study the synergistic effects of certain commonly used feed additives on performance of broilers. The 400 day-old ‘Vencob’ broiler chicks were randomly divided into eight equal groups. Group A was control and other seven groups received dietary treatments as prebiotic (Bio-MOS) @ 2 kg/tonne in prestarter, @1 kg/tonne in starter and @ 0.5 kg/tonne of feed in finisher diet; probiotic (Protexin) @ 100 g/tonne in prestarter and starter, and @ 50 g/tonne of feed in finisher diet; acidifier (Kemgest-Dry) @ 1 kg/tonne of feed in all the three diets, either singly or in all possible combinations at respective dose rates. The results revealed that prebiotic, probiotic and acidifier alone or in combination resulted in higher final body weight, total weight gain, lower feed consumption and efficient feed utilization than control however, the differences were found to be significant in case of the groups receiving different combinations of prebiotic, probiotic and acidifier or all the three feed additives. Accordingly the supplementation of prebiotic alone and combinations of prebiotic, probiotic and acidifier in broiler diet helped to fetch more profits. Further, supplementation of various feed additives either used singly or in combination was found to reduce total coliform count of intestines. Thus, it was concluded that certain commonly used feed additives in combination in broiler diets was beneficial for improving production performance and overall profit margin from broilers.
Broiler, feed additive, prebiotic, probiotic, acidifier
