An experiment was carried out to study the effect of using antibiotic, probiotics or prebiotic, as growth promoters, in broiler diets, on their performance and immune response under commercial scale production. A total number of 18000 one-day-old broiler chicks were divided into 12 experimental groups of 1500 birds each. All birds groups were randomly distributed into 6 experimental treatments (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6) where each treatment had 2 replicate groups.
Six experimental diets were formulated to contain about 21.5% CP and 2960 Kcal.ME/Kg diet, during the 1st four weeks of age (starter / grower period) and 17.9% CP and 3000 Kcal.ME/Kg diet, during the finisher period (29-42 days of age). Control treatment groups (T1) fed diets without any supplement, while treatment groups T2, T3, T4, T5 and T6 fed the control diets supplemented with antibiotic growth promoter (AGP), probiotic (P1), probiotic (P2), probiotic (P3), and prebiotic, commercial products, respectively .
No significant differences (P>0.05) were detected between treatments neither during the starter/grower period nor allover the experimental period that for body weight , feed consumption, feed conversion ratio, performance index and carcass characteristics.
The results of immune response indicated that some feed additives (prebiotic and probiotic) gave a promising effect on immune response against disease regardless to its effect on feed conversion.
It could be concluded that using of probiotics or prebiotic, as alternative growth promoters, in broiler diets, have no negative effects on their performance or immune response and may be comparable with antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs). It could be suggested also, that under commercial poultry production conditions, some of the existence many variable factors have not always been successfully controlled , however, further researches may have been needed.