Easily digested diets based on maltodextrin have been evaluated as a diet used in clearance of digestive tracts in poultry prior to shipping for slaughter. There is potential to include antimicrobial in this type of diet in effort to reduce the bacterial load in the gut and potentially improve food safety. In order to establish an effective inclusion level for bacteria inhibition in broiler digesta, a lysozyme product and allicin from garlic were tested in vitro. These ingredients were evaluated in a broth solution containing bacteria cultured from digesta from broilers fed maltodextrin or a Salmonella enterica serovar Heidelberg pure culture. Lysozyme was tested in two trials and allicin in the second trial. The antimicrobials were added at levels of 0, 50, 100 and 150 mg in 9 ml of buffered peptone water. Samples were incubated for 6 h at 35°C and plated on 3M petrifilm aerobic plates. Aerobic bacterial numbers were transformed into log10 values and analyzed using Proc Mixed of SAS. Lysozyme reduced bacteria numbers in both the Salmonella pure culture and the culture generated from chicken digesta. Allicin had no effect on aerobic bacteria numbers for all levels evaluated but lysozyme reduced numbers by 1.65, 4.15 and 3.91 log10 cfu for 50, 100 and 150 mg respectively. It is concluded that lysozyme will be effective in controlling bacteria in the digestive tract of market-aged broilers when delivered through a maltodextrin diet than allicin.
Keywords: aerobic bacteria; allicin, lysozyme; maltodextrin; Salmonella enterica serovar Heidelberg.
