Supplementation of Bacillus subtilis and lysine has positive impact on histo-morphometry of Jejunum and immune organs of broilers subjected to dexamethasone-induced stress

Abstract

Different types of stresses affect the production and health of broilers. There is a great demand across the world to find out different solutions to overcome the detrimental effects of stress especially in poultry. The purpose of present study is to gauge the effects of probiotic supplementation alone as well as in combination with two doses of lysine in broilers subjected to dexamethasone-induced stress (DS) as a solution of above mentioned problem. For this experiment, a total of 336 day-old corncob broiler chicks were brought up for forty-two days and were attributed to seven groups on twenty-first day of experimentation. The groups were the negative control (basal diet only); positive control (basal diet + DS); probiotics (100mg/kg diet) + DS; Low lysine (5g/Kg diet) + DS; probiotics (100mg/Kg diet) + Low lysine + DS; High lysine (11g/Kg diet) + DS; and probiotics (100mg/ton diet) + High lysine + DS. To cause stress, dexamethasone was offered to the birds by drinking water (@ 3mg/L) daily from 21^st to 28^th day of their life. At the termination of the experiment (day 42), two birds from each replicate were slaughtered for tissue collection to conduct the jejunal and immune organs histomorphometry. The results demonstrated that the DS adversely affects jejunal and immune organs’ health as compared to negatively controlled birds. However, the supplementation of Bacillus subtilis partially reversed the adverse effects of DS. Supplementation of B. subtilis + high lysine significantly improved the jejunal and immune organs’ histomorphometry compared with the DS birds. Moreover, the performance and health attributes of this supplemented group were comparable with the control group. Probiotics B. subtilis + high lysine-supplemented birds outperformed the dexamethasone-induced stressed- supplemented birds. So this combination may be useful to increase the yield of domestic as well as commercial poultry farming. This study will encourage scientists to find out more solutions to the negative effects of stress affecting the birds and animals.

Keywords: Bacillus subtilis; Dexamethasone; Goblet cells; Histomorphometry; Lysine; Stress; Supplementation

http://dx.doi.org/10.19045/bspab.2023.120145