Abstract

Probiotics are live microbial food ingredients that have a beneficial effect on human health. Intake of probiotics improves feed intake, egg production and egg quality in laying breeds. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of the probiotic lactobacillus species supplementation on productive traits of White Leghorn chicken. For this purpose, 30 samples of cow milk were collected from Haramaya university dairy farm during the period from May to August 2015. The probiotic properties of each isolates were confirmed by simulating gastrointestinal tract conditions. Based on physiological and biochemical tests Lactobacillus acidophilus and Lactobacillus plantarum were isolated. The experimental design used in this experiment was single-factor Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with treatments basal feed (control), supplementation of L. acidophilus (T2), L. plantarum (T3) and their combination (T4) and a 5% (P< 0.05) level significance was used. Supplementation of Lactobacillus species improved the Feed Intake (FI), Hen Day Egg production (HDEP) and egg weight. The FI recorded were 98.9 g/day/hen, 99.8 g/day/hen, 101.8 g/day/hen and 105.0 g/day/hen in control, T1, T2 and T3 respectively. HDEP of 0.31%, 0.33%, 0.33% and 0.34% were recorded at control, T1, T2 and T3 respectively. The egg weight of the control treatment, T1, T2 and T3 were 50.8g, 51.4 g, 51.4g and 51.9g respectively. Probiotic Lactobacillus species (L. acidophilus and L. plantarum) improves the productive traits of the laying flock. Chicken received the combination of probiotic lactobacillus species significantly perform best in FI, HDEP and egg weight.

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