Eugeni Roura

I. INTRODUCTIONThe ban on the use of AGPs together with good antibiotic stewardship practices by intensive livestock industries resulting in a decline of antimicrobial resistance globally (Salim et al., 2018). Probiotics have been widely studied partially as a replacement of AGPs. Some probiotics are able to improve production performance whilst improving gut health and decreasing the likelihood o ...

Xylo-oligosaccharides (XOS) are xylose-based oligomers, which have been described to affect the gut microflora, and gut function in chickens (Zhou et al., 2021). This, in turn, may have an impact on intestinal epithelial cell turnover, which accounts for a significant part of the energy of maintenance required by the gastrointestinal tract. The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of dieta ...

Oregano essential oil (OEO) and carvacrol, the main compound of OEO, are considered as a reference for biological activities of essential oils (EO). OEO has positive effects on gut and immune system developments potentially related to antimicrobial and antioxidant activities in chickens (Brenes and Roura, 2010). Embryonic development accounts for one-third of the lifespan of modern broiler chicken ...

Plant-derived essential oils (EOs) contain functional phytochemical components that are used as feed additives to improve gut health and reduce the need for antibiotics. The injection of EOs into fertile eggs has the potential to influence the developing embryo including the gastrointestinal tract. This in turn may mitigate intestinal susceptibility and regulate gut microbial composition, resultin ...

Broiler chickens spend one third of their lives developing inside an egg. Hence, understanding and optimising the in ovo environment is fundamental. The pH of body fluids is tightly regulated to maintain critical physiological functions such as gas exchanges. Enzymes equally have an optimum pH range that determines their efficiency. Changes to these conditions, may impact on the efficiency of O2 t ...

I. BACKGROUNDThe scale of the Australian chicken-meat industry has increased at an extraordinarily rapid rate so that now chicken-meat is clearly the first preference of consumers in comparison to pork, beef and lamb. In 1990/91, the Australian population was 17.2 million with a per capita chicken-meat consumption of 23.9 kg; however, this increased by 61.0% to 27.7 million people and consumption ...