Feed Additives for Poultry and Livestock and Their Mode of Action

Feed Additives:
“Feed additives are non-nutritive substances added to feeds to improve the efficiency of feed
utilization and feed acceptance or to be beneficial to the health or metabolism of the animal in
some way.”
Types:
1. Additives that influence feed stability, feed manufacturing, and
non-nutritive properties of feeds.
(A). Mold inhibitors (antifungal)
(B). Antioxidants (preservative)
(C). Pellet binder
2. Additives that modifies food intake, digestion, growth, feed
efficiency, metabolism and performance.
(A). Feed flavors.
(B). Digestion modifiers.
(C). Metabolism modifiers.
(G). Growth promoters,

3. Additives that modify animal health.

(A). Drugs.
(B). Environmentally active substances.

4. Additives that modify consumer acceptance of animal products.

(A). Pigmenting agents.

 Antibiotics:
 Produces by other microorganisms, fungi that protect the growth of bacteria
 Reduce the number of pathogenic bacteria (E. coli, Salmonella sp., etc.),
prevent the infection of the digestive tract,
 Increase the absorptive capacity of the small intestine (decrease the thickness
of the intestinal wall)
  Reduce the competition of bacteria with the host (bacteria ferment the
nutrients before digestion)
 They have been used mainly in pig and poultry nutrition
 Their widespread use could cause the ability of certain strains to be resistant
to many antibiotics
 Therefore, in the EU the use of antibiotic growth promoters has been
restricted since 2000

 Mechanism of action:
1. Suppress mild but unrecognized subclinical infections.
2. Inhibit the growth of toxin-producing gut microbes
3. Reduce microbial destruction of essential nutrients in the gut or improve the
gut synthesis of vitamins
4. Improve nutrient absorption by causing a thinning of the intestinal mucosa
5. Two or more combinations of the proceeding

 Probiotics:
 Live microbial food supplement
 Containing mostly lactic acid producing bacteria
 By reducing the pH in the intestine, reducing the numbers of harmful bacteria
(competitive exclusion)
 Enhance immune competence
 They are heat sensitive (pelleting)

 Prebiotics:
 (Oligosaccharides (2-20 monosaccharides) that modify the balance of the
micro floral population by promoting the growth of the beneficial bacteria
 Can be fermented by the favourable bacteria
 Decreasing the attachment of harmful bacteria with the gut wall
 Galactooligosaccharides (GOS) (legume seeds)
 Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) (cereal grains)
 Manna oligosaccharides (MOS) (yeast cell walls)

 Symbiotics:
 Contain both probiotics and prebiotics

 Organic acids:
 Lactic acid, formic acid, fumaric acid, citric acid, propionic acid etc.)
 Stabilise the intestinal microflora by decreasing the pH
 Can be effective in early weaned, young animals
  Incorporated into the diet (6-25 g/kg) or into the drinking water

 Enzymes:

 As a result of advances in biotechnology, more effective enzyme preparations

can be produced relatively inexpensively
 Supplement the insufficient enzyme secretion of young animals (amylase,
protease, lipase etc.)
 Can improve the availability of plant storage polysaccharides (starch, oils and
proteins) by degrading the cell wall content like cellulose by the enzyme
cellulase (5-10% improvement can be achieved in poultry and pig trials)
 Destroy ant-nutritive materials that interfere with the digestion and utilisation
of nutrients (glucanase, xylanase destroy cereal cell wall compounds, β-
glucans and arabinoxylans)
 Phytase releases phosphorous and other minerals from phytic acid in cereals
and oilseeds (greater availability of minerals, less need for inorganic
phosphorous, beneficial effect on the environment

Effect of -glucanase enzyme supplementation on the growth broiler

chicks
 Flavory materials:
 Sugars, vanilla, canella etc.
 Increase the feed intake
 Can be effective mostly in young intensively growing animals
 Their effect depends on the flavour sensation of different animal species

 Plant extracts, essential plant oils: (sage, peppermint, garlic, thyme

etc.)
 Can be used for the partial replacement of antibiotics
 Complex effects (flavour materials, antimicrobial compounds, antioxidants
etc.)
 The products in the practice are mostly the mixture of different plant extracts
and oils
 Their market share is increasing in Europe

 NPN materials:
 (urea, ammonium salts)
 Can be used in ruminant animal nutrition
 Mostly in low milk producing cows, beef cattle
 They are strict rules for using them.

 Toxin binders:
 Used for binding mycotoxins (zearalenon (F2); T2 toxin; ochratoxin,
deoxynivalenol (DON), fumonisins, aflatoxin etc.), decrease their absorption
 Aluminium silicates (bentonite)
 Glucomannans (yeast cell wall extracts)
 They efficiency is toxin dependent.

 Crystallinene amino acids:

 L – lysine
 DL – methionine
 In the near future threonine, tryptophan and arginine will also be available in
the feed industry
 For ruminants must be fed in by pass form (covering by fatty acids,
protecting against the bacterial degradation)
 Can be optimise the amino acid composition of food proteins
 Can be decreased the protein content of diets
 The price of compound feeds can be cheaper
  Decrease the N-excretion

 Colour materials:
 Carotenoids (zeaxanthin, lutein, licophin, capsanthin etc.)
 Egg yolk
 Skin, the fat below the skin
 Using is synthetic colour compounds is limited in the EU

 Antioxidants:
 Protecting vitamins and fatty acids from the oxidation
 Synthetic antioxidants
 Etoxi-methil-quinolin (EMQ)
 Butil-hidroxi-toluol (BHT)
 Natural antioxidants (vit. E, vit. C, carotenes etc.)
 They need depends on the fat and unsaturated fatty acid content of the diet.
 References:
1. Animal Nutrition by Mc Donald & Adverd.
2. Commercial Poultry Nutrition by S.Lesson.