Abstract:
Antibiotics have been widely used in animal production for decades in order to obtain high level of production and efficient feed utilization. Even though antibiotic growth promoters show positive effect on the performance of the livestock, use of antibiotics as growth promoters has caused some concerns in public health sectors. Transmission and the proliferation of resistant bacteria via the food chain and presence of harmful residues are the major concerns (Gunal et al., 2006) since Scandinavia and European Union have imposed a ban (Castanon, 2007). The need for developing alternatives is realized and many research studies have been started to identify suitable alternative feed additives that would reduce bacteria penetration and colonization in poultry and perform the same characteristics as the antibiotics.
Many such as probiotics, prebiotics, exogenous enzymes and organic acids have been used with some success. Amongst many, yeast cell wall polysaccharides found to be consumer friendly alternative but the efficacy will vary with environment, management practices and feed. No comparative studies have been done in Sri Lanka.
This study was conducted to determine the efficacy of an alternative, natural yeast cell wall polysaccharides which are having high affinity binders that can bind competitively to bacteria and prevent there binding to bowel cells, to colonize and caused infection. In the study that was compared with the commonly used antibiotic growth promoters in Sri Lanka
