Effect of Dietary Supplementation of Yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) on Performance and Carcass Characteristics of Broiler Chicks

Abstract

The objectives of this study was to determine the effect of dietary supplementation of yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae on broiler performance. A seven-weeks feeding trial was conducted with day-old broiler chicks (Lohman), housed on deep litter in an open experimental house. The experiment was laid in a completely randomized design. The chicks were fed on an experimental starter diet during the first three weeks, and a finisher diets during the last four weeks, of the experimental period. The diet were adequate in nutrients requirements in comparison with the NRC (1994) recommendations. Four graded levels of dietary yeast were supplemented to the finisher diets at the rate of 0.00%, 0.02%, 0.04% and 0.06%. The effect of dietary yeast supplementation to the finisher diets on feed consumption, live weight gain, feed conversion ratio, mortality rate and carcass characteristics of the experimental birds on the different dietary treatments were assessed. The data were subjected to analysis of variance using SPSS, and the statistical differences among the dietary treatments were determined using Duncan's Multiple Range test. The results indicated that the mean total feed consumption of the experimental birds was statistically similar for all the experimental diets, indicating no effect of yeast supplementation on this parameter. On the other hand, the other parameters showed significant differences among the dietary treatments. The best performance, in the form of live weight gain and feed conversion efficiency, was attained by the birds fed the diet containing 0.02% yeast, followed by the birds fed the control diet (without yeast supplementation); and the lowest production performance was attained by the birds fed the finisher diet supplemented with 0.04% and 0.06% yeast. This indicates that the improvement in the production parameters was not consistent with increased dietary levels of yeast supplementation, since the lowest response was obtained by the highest dietary supplementation 9 (0.06%), and the highest response by the lowest supplementation. and The lowest yeast supplementation also resulted in higher hot and cold carcass weights and increased the gizzard, caeca and liver weights, which may suggest increased digestibility and metabolism and hence a higher efficiency of feed and nutrients utilization. The present experiment is, however, rather limited in scope and cannot adequately answer these questions, but it can give good indications for further research on the subject