An experiment was conducted for six weeks to investigate the effect of antibiotics, probiotics and prebiotics as feed additives in broiler diets to check for their effects on performance and carcass characteristics. A total of 250 unsexed Abor-acre broiler chicks were randomly allotted into 5 treatment groups containing 5 replicates with 10 birds per replicate. All birds were subjected to the same environmental conditions. The treatments were assigned into 5 dietary treatments containing 0.01% antibiotics, 0.06% probiotics, 0.1% probiotics and 0.2% prebiotics while the first treatment which served as the control did not include anything. Parameters on performance (feed intake, weight gain, feed conversion ratio and the feed efficiency ratio) and carcass characteristics (live and dressed weight, head, neck, breast, back, wings, drumsticks, thigh, shank, gizzard, lungs, liver, spleen, heart and bursa of fabricius) was evaluated. Data were subjected to analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure of SAS, 2010. It was observed that birds fed with probiotics had the highest weight gain (1218.15g and 1163.68g) and high feed intake, relatively high weight in wings when compared with other treatments. The inclusion of probiotics at certain level increases growth performance, relatively high value in some parts of carcass and the values are closer to those fed antibiotics. It thus shows that probiotics can be used to replace antibiotics.
Keywords: : Antibiotic, Broiler, Prebiotic., Probiotic
