Abstract
The poultry industry needs efficient antibiotic alternatives to prevent necrotic enteritis (NE) infections. Here, we evaluate the effects of probiotic and/or prebiotic dietary supplementation on performance, meat quality and carcass traits, using only an NE coinfection model, in broiler chickens. Three hundred and twenty-four healthy Ross 308 broiler chicks are allocated into six groups. Taking a 35 d feeding trial, the chicks are fed a basal diet with 0.0, 0.1, 0.5, 0.12, 0.5 + 0.12, and 0.2 g Kg(-1) for the control (T(1)), Avilamycin (Maxus; T(2)), live probiotic (CloStat (Bacillus subtilis);T(3)), natural phytobiotic compounds (Sangrovit Extra (sanguinarine and protopine); T(4)), CloStat + Sangrovit Extra (T(5)), and spore probiotic strain (Gallipro Tect (Bacillus subtilis spores); T(6)) treatments, respectively. Occurring at 15 days-old, chicks are inoculated with Clostridium perfringens. The obtained results reveal that all feed additives improve the performance, feed efficiency, and survival rate, and reduces the intestinal lesions score compared with the control group. The T(6) followed by T(3) groups show a significant (p < 0.05) increase in some carcass traits, such as dressing, spleen, and thymus percentages compared with other treatments. Also, T(5) and T(6) have significantly recorded the lowest temperature and pHu values and the highest hardness and chewiness texture values compared to the other treated groups. To conclude, probiotics combined with prebiotic supplementation improves the growth, meat quality, carcass characterization and survival rate of NE-infected broiler chickens by modulating gut health conditions and decreasing lesion scores. Moreover, it could be useful as an ameliorated NE disease alternative to antibiotics in C. perfringens coinfected poultry.