Influence of Prebiotics, Probiotics or Synbiotics on Performance, Intestinal Mucosal Integrity and Gut Microbiota of Turkey Poults

Abstract

In a four-week experiment, 125 four-week old turkey poults were distributed into five dietary treatment groups:
treatment 1 was basal diet while 2, 3, 4 and 5 contained antibiotics, prebiotics, probiotics and synbiotics
(combination of prebiotics and probiotics) respectively. Each diet replicated five times in a completely
randomised design. At day 56, poults were sacrificed and ileal digesta samples collected for microbial load
count and sections from the ileum for histomorphological measurements using standard procedures. Data were
analyzed using descriptive statistics and ANOVA at α0.05. The results showed similar feed intake for birds fed
experimental diets except those supplemented with synbiotics which was significantly different. The villus height;
crypt depth, villus width, villus:crypt ratio except the epithelial cell thickness were significantly influenced. The
final weight, weight gain, feed conversion ratio, protein efficiency ratio of the birds and the microbial load were
not influenced by the diets. However, the results obtained from the histological indices showed that birds fed
prebiotics, probiotics or synbiotics supplementations respectively performed better compared to birds fed
antibiotics and basal diets. Therefore, probiotics, prebiotics or synbiotics can be a suitable replacement as
growth promoters to conventional antibiotics in turkey poults