Background:

The zootechnical additives can substitute therapies with antibiotics and offer an effective alternative to produce healthy feeds sustainably.

Aim

. To evaluate the effect of the inclusion of a symbiotic additive (PROBIOLEV®) in the diet of birds, based on glucane oligosaccharides, mannanes, and Bacillus subtilis E44.

Materials and Methods:

The experiment relied on a completely randomized design with two treatments: T-1 (basal diet or control) and T-2 (basal diet plus PROBIOLEV®). The production indicators, such as the percentage of birds included to hatching, total number of eggs per bird, and per week, feed consumption and feed conversion, and health indicators like mortality and viability, were evaluated as well.

Results:

Compared to the control, the birds that received the symbiotic biopreparation in the diet produced more eggs (1516 and 176) throughout the experimental period. The inclusion of the additive was observed to improve all the indicators evaluated, and caused benefits (P<0.05) in the percentage of birds in production, total eggs per bird (23.7 and 27.6), and egg conversion per feed consumed (6.3 and 5.4). Moreover, the application of the additive reduced mortality (29.7% and 12.5%), and increased bird viability (70 and 87%, respectively).

Conclusions:

The results of this study confirm the symbiotic potential of PROBIOLEV® in the improvement of production and health indicators of heavy purebread birds. This a natural additive, which can be interesting biotechnological choice for animal production in Cuba.