Inclusion of probiotic (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) on growth performance of chicken: A review

Abstract

Food supplementation with probiotic (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) in poultry as a mean lead to improve the health and growth performance of poultry. The use of antibiotics in poultry with the purpose of promoting growth rate, body weight gain, increasing feed conversion efficiency, feed conversion ratio. With increasing concerns about antibiotic resistance, there is increasing interest in finding alternatives to antibiotics for poultry production. To avoid the health hazards of antimicrobials drugs like antibiotics to human as well as poultry, probiotic has been used for as an potential substitute for antibiotics and been proved to be saved in poultry production system. This increased attention toward probiotic supplementation has generated an extensive body of research in the present day. However, there is still a lot of debate in scientific literature regarding the significant effect of probiotic on immune response against specific pathogens and growth performance in poultry. The natural feed supplements can effectively be utilized to promote growth in poultry and livestock while avoiding the dangerous phenomenon of encouraging drug resistant bacteria as in the case of antibiotic growth promoters (Demir et al. 2003, Cross et al. 2007). It is not surprising, therefore, that several herbal agents have been empirically used in poultry birds and other animals.