Poultry diets without antibiotics. II. Intestinal microbiota and performance of broiler (Gallus gallus L.) breeders fed diets with a phytobiotic

The worldwide experience is explicitly evidencing that genetically conditioned productivity potential in poultry can be realized only in healthy birds. Since the implementation of the antibiotic bans in EC countries a constant search for the effective alternatives to in-feed antibiotic growth promoters (AGP) is still in progress. The additives of different types (probiotics, prebiotics, synbiotics, symbiotics, acidifiers, phytobiotics) with growth-stimulating efficiency close to that in antibiotics and inducing no harmful effects become increasingly popular in practical poultry nutrition. The efficiency of phytobiotic Intebio based on the essential oils in diets for growing chicken of preparental lines B5 and B9 (selected by Smena Center for Genetic Selection) was studied. The parameters of growth efficiency, duodenal and circulatory activity of the digestive enzymes in fistulated birds, the results of molecular genetic analysis of the composition of duodenal and cecal microbiota are presented...