The effect of dietary chitosan oligosaccharides (COS) supplementation on ileal digestibilities of nutrients and performance in broilers was assessed by feeding graded levels (0, 50, 100, 150 mg/kg) of COS. Two thousand four hundred male commercial Avian broilers (1-d-old) were assigned randomly to 5 dietary treatment groups (60 birds per pen with 8 pens per treatment). Diet A was a typical corn- and soybean meal-based diet supplemented with 6 mg/kg of an antibiotic flavomycin (positive control). Diet B was the basal diet without any supplement. Diets C, D, and E were formulated by adding 50, 100, and 150 mg/kg of COS to the basal diet, respectively. On the morning of d 21 and 42, 64 birds (8 per pen with 8 pens per treatment) from the growth trial for each age group were killed by cervical dislocation for determination of the ileal digestibilities of nutrients. Dietary supplementation with COS and antibiotic enhanced (P < 0.05) the ileal digestibilities of DM, Ca, P, CP, and all amino acids (except for alanine in the 21-d-old birds or phenylalanine, glutamate, and glycine for the 42-d-old birds). Feed efficiency was improved (P < 0.05) in response to dietary supplementation of an antibiotic or COS (150 mg/kg for d 1 to 21, and 100 and 150 mg/kg for d 21 to 42). The results demonstrate for the first time to our knowledge that dietary COS supplementation was effective in increasing the ileal digestibilities of nutrients and feed efficiency in broilers. Our findings may explain a beneficial effect of COS on chicken growth performance.

Immunomodulatory feed additives might offer alternatives to antimicrobial growth promoters in pig production. This experiment was designed to determine the effects of dietary galacto-mannan-oligosaccharide (GMOS) and chitosan oligosaccharide (COS) supplementation on the immune response in early-weaned piglets. Forty 15-day-old piglets (Duroc×Landrace×Yorkshire) with an average live body weight of 5.6±0.51 kg were weaned and randomly assigned to 4 treatment groups that were fed maize-soybean meal diets containing either basal, 110 mg/kg of lincomycin, 250 mg/kg of COS or 0.2% GMOS, respectively, over a 2-week period. Another six piglets of the same age were sacrificed on the same day at the beginning of the study for sampling, in order to obtain baseline values. Interleukin (IL)-1β gene expression in peripheral blood monocytes, jejunal mucosa and lymph nodes, as well as serum levels of IL-1β, IL-2 and IL-6, IgA, IgG, and IgM, were evaluated for 5 pigs from each group at 15 and 28 days of age. The results indicate that weaning stress resulted in decreases in serum antibody and cytokine levels. Dietary supplementation with GMOS or COS enhanced (p<0.05) IL-1β gene expression in jejunal mucosa and lymph nodes, as well as serum levels of IL-1β, IL-2, IL-6, IgA, IgG and IgM compared to supplementation with lincomycin. These findings suggest that GMOS or COS may enhance the cell-mediated immune response in earlyweaned piglets by modulating the production of cytokines and antibodies, which shows that GMOS or COS have different effects than the antibiotic on animal growth and health.

This study was conducted to determine the effects of dietary probiotic supplementation on the ileal digestibilities of nutrients and growth performance in broilers. Two thousand, eight hundred and eighty male broiler chickens at 1 day of age were randomly allotted to eight treatment groups and fed for 6 weeks the maize-soybean meal-based diets containing 0, 0.2, 0.4 or 0.6% AgiPro A100 (a probiotic) and 0 or 6 ppm flavomycin (an antibiotic). This well-established antibiotic was used as a positive control for the efficacy of AgiPro A100. Dietary supplementation with either the probiotic or the antibiotic alone did not affect (P > 0.05) feed intake or average daily gain (ADG) of broilers between days 1 and 42 of life. However, there was a significant antibiotic × probiotic interaction effect (P < 0.05) in increasing ADG during the entire experimental period. Notably, dietary supplementation with the probiotic or the antibiotic consistently improved (P < 0.05) the ileal digestibilities of crude protein and most amino acids in 21-and 42-day-old chickens. Supplementing the probiotic to broiler diets also improved (P < 0.05) the ileal digestibilities of dry matter, energy, calcium and phosphate in the birds. Collectively, these results indicated that AgiPro A100 is an effective alternative to flavomycin in chicken production.

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