Effect of feeding of oregano oil with probiotic on gut microbiota and nutrients digestibility of broiler chicken

Abstract

To evaluate the effect of probiotics and essential oils on gut activities and metabolic studies of broiler, this experiment was carried out on day-old broiler chicks of Ven-Cobb 400Y strain (n=240) for 42 days. These broiler chicks were randomly distributed into 4 equal treatment groups with T0 (Control), T1, T2 and T3 with 60 birds in each group having 4 replicates of 15 birds each group. The treatments were T0 (Control, Standard broiler chicken diet as per BIS, 2007), T1 (Standard broiler chicken diet as per BIS, 2007 with oregano essential oil @ 0.15 gm/kg diet), T2 (Standard broiler chicken diet as per BIS, 2007 with probiotic (encapsulated Saccharomyces cerevisiae) @ 200 gm/ tonnes) and T3 (Standard broiler chicken diet as per BIS, 2007 with oregano essential oil @ 0.15 gm/kg diet and probiotic (encapsulated Saccharomyces cerevisiae) @ 200 gm/ tonnes). In the gut salmonella and clostridia count, ileal pH, dry matter digestibility and nitrogen retention showed significant (P0.05) difference between the groups. So supplementation of probiotics and essential oils modulate the activity of gut, increase the dry matter digestibility and nitrogen retention of broiler chicken.