Southern Poultry Research - Case Study

Background:
Southern Poultry Research performed a 28-day battery test with Cobb 500 chicks. The study included eight replicate cages for each treatment with eight chicks per cage, or 64 birds per treatment The probiotic treatments were added to the respective feed at a concentration of 2e6, or two million colony forming units (CFU) per gram of feed. The control treatments did not contain probiotic bacteria. The antibiotic Bacitracin was included in the test as the industry standard for comparison. On day 14 approximately 5,000 oocysts of Eimeria maxima were orally administered to treatments 2, 3 and 4. This was followed on day 19, 20 and 21 with the inoculation of the appropriate birds with Clostridium perfringens, the causative agent of necrotic enteritis, at a concentration of 1e8 (100 million) CFU per milliliter. On day 28, the study was completed with intestinal lesion severity and mortality recorded.