Mariana Lemos de Moraes

I. INTRODUCTIONMaintenance of intestinal integrity is of fundamental importance to the overall health and growth performance of the bird. Disturbances in the homeostasis of the gastrointestinal tract can result in inflammatory process, loss of intestinal integrity, low nutrient digestibility and poor growth performance. In a situation of intestinal inflammation, pro-inflammatory interleukins such ...

The increased demand to reduce production costs, as well as concerns about the environment, have resulted in pressure on poultry producers to increase dietary energy utilisation and to improve feed efficiency. Usually, technologies such as exogenous enzymes that are supplemented in the diets have been one of the main pathways used to reach these goals. Xylanase is well known to produce positive ef ...

There is increasing pressure for the use of antibiotic growth promoters (AGPs) in poultry diets to be discontinued or reduced. In this context, the search for natural additives such as organic acids (OA) and essential oils (EO) has increased. Previous studies have reported beneficial effects on gut health of supplementing poultry diets with these natural feed additives. As in many countries the us ...