effects of dietary mannan-oligosaccharides and phytase supplementation alone or incombination on growth performance, serum metabolites, cecal microbiota activityand intestinal morphology in broiler chickens

This study evaluated the effect of a combination of mannan-oligosaccharides(mos) and microbial phytase (mp) on growth performance, some bloodbiochemical metabolites, intestinal morphology and cecal microbial populationof ross 308 broiler chickens from d 0 to 35 of age. a total of 200 one-dayoldbroiler chickens (mixed sex) were randomly distributed into fourtreatments with five replicates and 10 birds per each. the dietary treatmentsincluded a basal diet, the basal diet supplemented with mos (as 2 g/kg of diet),mp (as 100 g/t phyzyme xp 5000), and the combination of mos and mp(mos+mp). supplementation of mos+mp improved feed conversion ratioand body weight gain of broilers compared with the control group (p < 0.05).dietary treatments had no significant effect on carcass traits. in the intestinalmorphometric indices, villus length was greater in the birds which received mpindividually or in combination with mos (p < 0.05). supplementation of mp,mos or mos+mp increased serum concentration of calcium in the broilerscompared with control treatment (p < 0.05). broiler chickens fed dietscontaining mos+mp had lower numbers of e. coli, but higher count oflactobacilli rather than control group (p < 0.05). based on these results, it isconcluded that dietary supplementation of mp in combination with mosimproved growth performance and intestinal microbial ecosystem of broilerchickens.