Supplement of probiotics improves the meat output and quality of near maturity yellow-feathered broilers

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

To investigate effects of Lactobacillus plantarum and Bacillus subtilis as feed additives on the growth performance of near maturity yellow-feathered broilers. A total of 75 100-day-old hens were randomly divided into five groups. 1% of L.plantarum(P-group), B.subtilis (B-group), a 1:1 mixture of both strains(PB-group), or commercial probiotic production（M-group）were added into the drinking water at a concentration of 1.5x109 cfu/mL respectively. The control group was fed basal diet. Our results showed that L.plantarum could increase the intestinal enzyme activity of broilers, while decreasing the plasma MDA content, increasing the ALB and TP content, decreasing the plasma AST content, increasing the concentrations of plasma IgA and CD8 molecules, improving the jejunum structure. Meanwhile, B.subtilis increased the concentration of plasma AST and CD8 molecules of broilers. Additionally, B.subtilis also increases the plasma GSH-Px content, but not affecting the plasma biochemical indexes. And increases the plasma IgG and GSH-Px contents and the VCR ratio also improved in M-group. Additionally, the methionine content in thoracic muscle was increased in all groups. But only adding probiotics groups increase the relative abundance of broiler intestinal phylum Synechococcus and Phylum Firmicutes while decreasing the relative abundance of Enterococcus spp. Our results showed that adding probiotics could improve the meat output and quality. It might also be necessary to optimize the feeding conditions by selecting specific strains according to different effects of those probiotics, and to evaluate the best viable number of probiotics which survives in broiler guts to balance the cost and the effort.