Beneficial Impacts of Probiotics on Poultry Nutrition

Antibiotics have been commonly used as growth enhancers to promote performance and feed efficiency in poultry production. It is essential to find new and safe alternative compounds to antibiotics due to their numerous harmful effects, such as antibiotic resistance, destruction of the gastrointestinal microbiota community, and dysbacteriosis. Improving poultry production using probiotics as feed additives is one of the decent alternative options to antibiotics. Probiotics are described as “living microorganisms that confer a benefit on the host health when applied in adequate quantities”. Probiotics as feed additives help in feed digestion by creating the nutrients in an available form to grow faster. Also, poultry diets supplemented with probiotics improve immunity status. Besides, fortified poultry diets with probiotics enhance meat characterization and egg quality traits. Additionally, the use of probiotics in poultry feed could prevent various infectious diseases. Thus, obtaining optimum results requires a good selection of probiotic strains. This chapter focuses on the probiotics’ mode of action and their relevance in poultry diet supplementation to improve production and preserve poultry health.

Keywords: Health, Mechanisms, Performance, Poultry, Probiotics.