EFFECTS OF XYLANASE SUPPLEMENTATION ON C. PERFRINGENS AND PERFORMANCE OF BROILER FED A LOW-ME WHEAT AND CHALLENGED WITH COCCIDIA

Abstract

An experiment was conducted for five weeks to examine the effects of xylanase
supplementation on C. perfiingens in the ileum and caeca and performance of
broilers fed low-ME wheat and challenged with coccidia. 100 day-old broilers were
used in the experiment. They were divided into two groups of 50 each and kept
separately (group A and group B). Each group was further divided into two groups
of 25 birds each (Al, A2 and Bl, B2) and were fed low-ME wheat diets, one
without xylanase Supplementation (T1) and the other with xylanase supplementation
(T2). At 9 d of age, all birds in group A (Al and A2) were orally infected with
Eimeria maxima at dosage of 2000 oocysts/bird/ml whereas the birds in group B
remained unchallenged. At 2 d post-infection (PI), one bird fi-om each group was
chosen at random and killed on every other day till week four for C. perfiingens
enumeration. At 21 d of age, the rest of the birds were transferred into slide-in cages
with four birds per compartment for diets assessment on feed intake (Fl) body
weight gains (BWG), feed conversion ratio (FCR), apparent metabolisable energy
(AME) and viscosity. There was no C. perfiingens isolated from either ileum or
caeca of birds fed the T2 diet during the experiment. On the contrary, birds fed the
T1 diet showed a considerable amount of C. perflingens in both the ileum and caeca
detected at 105/g digest. For birds challenged with coccidia, no C. perfiingens was
cultured from either ileum or caeca of birds fed different diets except on week four,
a number of C. perfiingens was detected at 10‘/g digest in both ileum and caeca of
birds fed the Tl diet. Xylanase supplementation had a significant effect (P<0.05) on
Fl, BWG, FCR, AME and viscosity. For birds challenged with coccidia, no significant effects was observed on Fl, BWG, FCR and viscosity. However, there was a highly significant efiect on AME (P<0.01). There were also no significant interaction between diet and challenge (P>0.05) for any of the performance parameters measured. It can be concluded that xylanase can be used as an efiective
means in reduci.ng the growth of C. perfiingens in the ileum and caeca of broilers
challenged with coccidia and thus improve the performance of the birds.