Xylanase and Direct-Fed Microbials (DFM) Potential for Improvement of Live Performance, Energy Digestibility, and Reduction of Environmental Microbial Load of Broilers

Abstract

The challenge of identifying alternatives to subtherapeutic levels of antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) in animal feed has led to increased interest in feed additives such as exogenous enzymes and direct-fed microbials (DFM). Six corn soy-based dietary treatments were designed to investigate the effect of high-efficiency xylanase alone, Bacillus spp. probiotics alone, and their combination vs. a commonly used antibiotic growth promoter (bacitracin methylene disalicylate; BMD) on live performance and environmental Clostridium perfringens load of broiler chickens with eight replicate pens per treatment. Diets were as follows: standard diet (positive control; PC); 130 kcal/kg reduced-energy diet (negative control; NC); NC with xylanase (NC + Xy); NC with probiotics (NC + Pro); NC with xylanase and probiotics mix (NC + XyPro); and NC with BMD (NC + BMD). Data were analyzed as one-way ANOVA. At 35 and 42 days, birds fed with NC + XyPro and NC + BMD were heavier (P < 0.05) than birds fed with NC. Improvement in feed conversion ratio (FCR) (P = 0.0001) was observed from 1 to 42 days by ~3 points in both NC + XyPro and NC + BMD compared to NC. The NC + XyPro reduced lesion scores by 66% compared to PC and NC. Litter C. perfringens cell count was reduced by ~16% with supplementation of XyPro or BMD. It can be concluded that a blend of xylanase (10 XU/g feed) and Bacillus spp. [1 × 105 colony forming units (CFU)/g feed] can be used as an alternative to AGP in low-energy broiler diets.

The Effect of a Modified GH11 Xylanase on Live Performance, Gut Health, and Clostridium perfringens Excretion of Broilers Fed Corn-Soy Diets

“…Saleh et al ( 25 ) reported that feeding low energy diet (90 kcal/kg) reduced BWG, while adding xylanase increased BWG and improved FCR. Similar results were also reported by Nusairat and Wang ( 17 ) in broilers. Furthermore, Ravn et al ( 26 ) showed that the addition of a xylanase and arabinofuranosidase combination improved duodenum villi length; an indicator of enhanced growth performance of the broilers.…”

“…The GH11 xylanases usually have a larger active site, and they are more substrate specific ( 14 ), and degradation produces short-chained oligosaccharide subunits that act as prebiotics for the beneficial bacteria in the gut ( 15 ). It has been shown that adding xylanase to poultry diets improves nutrient utilization by increasing its digestibility as well as alleviating the negative effect of many anti-nutritional compounds that the animal cannot digest ( 16 , 17 ). Furthermore, xylanase has been shown to have a protective effect on the intestinal mucosa barrier to alleviate the negative effect of Clostridium perfringens infection in 21 d old broilers ( 18 ).…”

Effects of a direct fed microbial (DFM) on broiler chickens exposed to acute and chronic cyclic heat stress in two consecutive experiments

“…Similar to the current results, DFMs have be reported to have the ability to improve AME in nutrient deficient diets ( Weallands et al, 2017 ; Nusairat and Wang, 2020 ). Again, this AME comparison may be less valuable as it adds additional factors such as fermentation and increased retention time to consider.…”

In vitro bioprocessing of corn as poultry feed additive by the influence of carbohydrate hydrolyzing metagenome derived enzyme cocktail

“…On the other hand, α-amylase had a positive effect on feed conversion 59 . These enzymes increase the release of trapped nutrients, increasing energy utilization and reducing the cost of production 61 . Therefore, the production of the enzyme cocktail containing xylanase and α-amylase is advantageous for improving the poultry industry.…”