The Effect of Peanut Skins as A Natural Antimicrobial Feed Additive on Ileal and Cecal Microbiota in Broiler Chickens Inoculated with Salmonella enterica Enteritidis.

The consumption of poultry products contaminated with Salmonella species is one of the most common causes of Salmonella infections. In vivo studies demonstrated the potential application of peanut skins (PS) as an antimicrobial poultry feed additive to help mitigate the proliferation of Salmonella in poultry environments. Tons of PS, a waste by-product of the peanut industry, are generated and disposed in U.S. landfills annually. Peanut skins and extracts have been shown to possess antimicrobial and antioxidant properties. Hence, we aimed to determine the effect of PS as a feed additive on the gut microbiota of broilers fed a control or PS supplemented (4% inclusion) diet and inoculated with or without Salmonella enterica Enteritidis (SE). At hatch 160 male broilers were randomly assigned to 4 treatments: 1) CON-control diet without SE, 2) PS-PS diet without SE, 3) CONSE-control diet with SE, 4) PSSE-PS diet with SE. On d 3, birds from CONSE and PSSE treatments were inoculated with 4.2 × 10