Dietary synbiotic supplementation improves the growth performance, body antioxidant pool, serum biochemistry, meat quality, and lipid oxidative stability in broiler chickens

The present study investigated the effects of Lactobacillus acidophilus (LBA) and mannan-oligosaccharides (MOS) supplementation on the production performance, serum biochemistry, antioxidant profile, health indices, meat quality, and lipid oxidative stability of broiler chicken. A total of 252 commercial broiler chickens at 1 d old of uniform body weight were randomly allocated to 6 maize-soybean-based dietary treatments: T 1 (control diet), T 2 ( antibiotic bacitracin methylene di-salicylate [BMD] at 20 mg/kg diet), T 3 (MOS at 0.1% + LBA at 10 6  CFU/g feed), T 4 (MOS at 0.1% + LBA at 10 7  CFU/g feed), T 5 (MOS at 0.2% + LBA at 10 6  CFU/g feed), and T 6 (MOS at 0.2% + LBA at 10 7  CFU/g feed). Each treatment was assigned to 6 replicates of 7 birds. The samples for meat quality and serum biochemistry analysis were taken from 12 birds per treatment (2 birds/replicate). The results revealed better ( P <  0.01) growth performance and production efficiency of birds fed either T 5 or T 6 diet compared to control or BMD supplemented diet and BMD-supplemented birds superseded the control birds. Higher ( P <  0.01) serum and liver antioxidant enzyme activities, meat antioxidant capacity (2, 2-azinobis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid [ABTS] and 1, 1-diphenyl-2-picrylhydrazyl [DPPH] assays], serum total protein, high-density lipoproteins (HDL) cholesterol ( P <  0.05), and globulin levels ( P <  0.01) were observed in birds fed either T 5 or T 6 diet compared to control or BMD supplemented birds, whereas, lower lipid oxidation ( P <  0.01), cardiac risk ratio, atherogenic coefficient, atherogenic index of plasma, serum glucose, triglyceride, total cholesterol levels ( P <  0.01), and serum albumin-to-globulin ratio ( P <  0.05) were observed in the chickens. The pH of meat from birds fed T 4 , T 5 or T 6 diet was lower ( P <  0.01) compared to control and other treatments. The extract release volume (ERV), water holding capacity (WHC), and protein content of meat were higher ( P <  0.05) in birds fed either T 5 or T 6 diet compared to control or BMD supplemented birds. Thus, it was concluded that the supplementation of 0.2% MOS along with LBA at 10 6  CFU/g is optimum for better growth performance, serum biochemistry, antioxidant profile, health indices, meat quality, and lipid oxidative stability of broiler chickens.