Reintroduction of microflora from necrotic enteritis-resistant chickens reduces gross lesions and improves performance of necrotic enteritis-challenged broilers

Probiotics feature one or multiple strains of viable bacteria that beneficially modulate the intestinal health of the host. The key criteria for probiotics, like all feed additives, are that they must be safe and efficacious to use. One of the efficacious measures for probiotics used in poultry feed is their ability to act as an alternative to in-feed antibiotics against economically significant diseases like necrotic enteritis (NE). The current study investigated the effect of the reintroduction of crude ileal and cecal contents from previously NE-challenged chickens on performance, mortality, and intestinal lesions of young broilers under NE challenge. As expected, a subclinical NE challenge depressed bird performance (P < 0.001) and caused intestinal damage. Cloacal administration of both ileal and cecal crude flora inoculants significantly (P = 0.021) improved feed conversion efficiency at d 35. The severity of NE-associated intestinal lesions also was alleviated by the inoculants (P = 0.049), whereby cecal flora inoculant markedly reduced lesion scores in challenged birds, and the ileal crude flora inoculum numerically improved lesion score. These preliminary findings suggest that the gut microbiome of birds plays a significant role in the susceptibility of broilers to NE, and more work is required to elucidate the mechanisms by which this occurs.