Effort to reduce ammonia gas in the broiler chicken excreta with the addition of probiotic as substitute for antibiotic growth promoter

Abstract

This study has been carried out to evaluate the use of drinking water-soluble probiotics as an alternative to Zinc bacitracin Antibiotic Growth Promoter (AGP) in an effort to reduce the concentration of ammonia excreta as a result of increased feed digestibility. The probiotic used contains 2.0 × 107 CFU mL-1 Lactobacillus sp, 1.6 × 107 CFU mL-1 Bacillus sp, and 7.4 × 109 CFU mL-1 Streptomyces sp. The excreta sample was obtained from 15 male Lohmann strain broiler chickens aged 35 days from a total population of 300 chickens that had previously been reared since Day Old Chick. The chickens were distributed into three treatments and five replications in a metabolic cage with a size of 50 cm × 30 cm × 56 cm for three days. This study used Completely Randomized Design (CRD) with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The addition of probiotic significantly reduced (P <0.01) water content and ammonia concentration of broiler chicken excreta. The addition of drinking water-soluble probiotics significantly increased (P <0.01) the feed intake and feed digestibility of broiler chicken. The use of probiotics was better than Zinc bacitracin in reducing excreta ammonia concentration and feed digestibility.