TITLE:
Combination of a Lactobacillus-Based Probiotic and Organic Acids Decrease Egg to Chick Weight Loss and Reduce Salmonella spp. Counts in the Litter of Commercial Broiler Breeders
AUTHORS:
Matias A. Michel, Fernando A. Revidatti, Ricardo J. Fernández, Martín L. Sindik, Paola Sanz, Xochitl Hernandez-Velasco, Juan D. Latorre, Billy M. Hargis, Guillermo Tellez-Isaias
KEYWORDS:
Broiler Breeder, Organic Acid, Probiotic, Salmonella, Litter
JOURNAL NAME:
Food and Nutrition Sciences,
Vol.10 No.8,
August
21,
2019
ABSTRACT: The effects of supplementing a blend of organic acids (OA) and a lactic
acid bacteria (LAB) based-probiotic on egg to chick weight loss (%) and Salmonella spp. recovery counts in the litter of commercial broiler breeders were
examined in three independent trials during the years 2013, 2014 and 2015. In
each trial, ten thousand birds were divided into two groups of 5000 birds (4500
females and 500 males in each group): Control non-treated group, receiving
regular water or treated group, receiving OA and probiotic in the drinking
water from 25 to 35 weeks of age. During the ten weeks of evaluation, one
thousand fertile eggs or hatched chickens in each trial respectively, were
evaluated to obtained, hatching set weight, transferred egg weight, and
hatching chick weight, to estimate the difference between egg to chick weight loss (%). Besides, in
trial 2 (2014) and trial 3 (2015), litter samples were collected to evaluate Salmonella spp. counts. The supplementation of OA and probiotic during ten
consecutive weeks significantly decreased the egg to chick weight loss (%) when
compared with the control non-treated groups in all three trials evaluated.
Interestingly, at the end of the trials 2 and 3, no counts of Salmonella spp. in the litter were detected. In contrast, control-non treated
groups resulted in 4.30 and 4.24 Log10 of Salmonella spp.
in trials two and three respectively. The results of the present study suggest
that supplementation of OA and a LAB-probiotic for ten consecutive weeks
decrease the egg to chick weight loss (%) and reduce Salmonella spp.
counts in the litter of commercial broiler breeders. Higher initial body weight
in broiler chickens and reduction of Salmonella spp., clearly justify the use of the combination of these products, as
alternatives to antibiotics.